Avoiding Climate Talks

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had a plan to make all of the presidential candidates convene for some sort of debate on climate change and global warming, but it appears to have fallen apart. Nobody really even knew that it had been planned until Senator John McCain told everybody last month that he had been invited to participate. The reason he brought it up is because he is widely known as one of the more progressive candidates when it comes to reversing climate change, and this especially separates him from the other Republican candidates. The reason that the project fell apart was because hardly any other candidates besides McCain were willing to participate in the debate. However, the event’s planners hope to continue the debate perhaps sometimes later in the primary season, even if not before the New Hampshire primary. Mitt Romney apparently could not participate because he had been scheduled to appear somewhere else already, Fred Thompson had not made a decision as to whether or not he would participate, and Rudy Giuliani had simply not responded.

The Republican Schwarzenegger has said that he would like it to be a bipartisan debate, and that just while the participation of McCain was nice it was not enough. I personally think that, judging by the information given in this article, the Republican candidates seem to mostly be scared that they will get killed by the Democrats and McCain. Despite this fact, I think they need to step up so the real issues in this country can finally be addressed.

The right to arm bears

Sorry, though I'm sort of ashamed of it now I must say the first time that I saw an old, bearded man with a shirt demanding the right to arm bears I laughed ridiculously hard. Anyways, I was posting comments on other people's posts and this idea came to my mind, so I figured I might as well right about it. It sorta ties in with the talk about gun control and that stuff that people are talking about today. Here is basically the gist of what I am going to write about: the right to bear arms is an unnecessary right that is outdated.

Lots of people would find this position to just be absolutely appalling. They loves their guns, they have every right to keeps their guns, and you can pries their guns from their cold, lifeless hands. So let me just sort of explain my stance on this. It is my belief, as I assume others because I doubt I came up with this on my own, that the right to bear arms was created as a precautionary measure. The founding fathers did not sit back and imagine that in two hundred and fifty years their dreams of walking around with fully automatic weapons that would do absolutely no good if one were hunting. The fact of the matter is this: guns are only good for one thing and that is protection. But if your average Joe did not have and had a very hard time obtaining a gun (so basically just law enforcement had them) then you would have very little reason to need to protect yourself with a gun. The true original intent of the right to bear arms was for the newly formed states to be able to support their own militias at the time if it ever came down to it. It was frankly just easier on this new baby government if each of their citizens had their own gun instead of having to provide them with one. It is not like they decided that it was a key civil liberty; nobody believed that it was an intrinsic right of every human being to be allowed to own a firearm.

There are some things in the Constitution that are just clearly outdated. For example, when was the last time that the U.S. government even tried to quarter troops in our homes without our consent? That was really just a knee jerk reaction to something that they had experienced in their lives as colonials, as the right to bear arms is. I can understand why so many people are so clingy to their right to bear arms, because they think it is some sort of tradition that must be preserved. But really today this right is being abused, and if we could use gun control to lower the amount of crime and death due to guns I personally don't think the right to bear arms should be a viable argument, though I guarantee you it will always be seen as a viable argument by most of the country, especially the Supreme Court.

Multiparty... Single Party... Mario Party...?

So basically this entire post will be about what I think on this whole American party system issue we've been talking about in class. Though I think it is obvious that the best way to party is the Mario Party (by the way, Yoshi is by far the best character in the game), it really has no relevance to this topic. I just thought it would be fun to include in there. So as of right now I'm not really sure which way I'm leaning on this topic, but I just sorta plan to write about it and hopefully by the end I will have addressed enough of the arguments to decide for myself which side I'm on.
First of all, I really don't care about what the founding father thought about this topic. Though most people wouldn't like to admit it, there is a lot of things the founding fathers didn't want us to do that are part of our culture today. In fact, if you really look at it we really aren't following their wishes in the majority of what we do, but that's sort of off topic. In this particular case, we decided to ignore their ideas long ago when we went to a two party system so that is really irrelevant now. I personally am a fan of having everybody's ideas represented in Congress. For this reason I am a fan of the multiparty system. It's pretty obvious that the political spectrum as represented by a single line (which is really how we are doing it with a two party system) is not really a good way to gauge people's political views anymore, if it ever was. It would definitely be better in my opinion if I could vote for somebody who had views that were very close to mine, so I could be positive that my views are heard in Congress. A big argument against the multiparty system is that a candidate could win with say 80% of the population not having voted for them. While this certainly sounds bad, I don't think it is necessarily that different from today. For one, taken on a post-election level today we only have about 3 of every 10 people who approve of our president, yet we seem to be getting along fine. Sure things could be better, but it isn't all that bad. And even in an election the way we have it today: say the winner wins with 47% of the vote. I guarantee you that a very healthy part of that 47% did not even necessarily want that person to win. The candidate maybe only shared one of their many views, but they fit better under his big tent than the other persons. Also, many people vote just so "that other guy doesn't win." I personally don't think that the difference between true 20% support in a multiparty system (assuming it only gets that high. it would never really split evenly among 5 or 6 or however many groups. depending on the times i'm sure there would be strong favor towards certain parties) and the 30% of the nation who really voted for a candidate because they support the majority of his views that we get in a two party system. Granted, I really am sort of spitballing with my numbers here, and it really is mostly speculation but I hope you can see that there is some validity in those statements.
However, there is one big thing that really bothers me about the multiparty system. It is that one fatal flaw of democracy, the bureaucracy that accompanies it. Everybody knows that it can take years for important issues to get resolved as it stands now, and I can't imagine how it would get done in a multiparty Congress. I just don't trust our politicians to be able to resolve their differences and come to a solid conclusion. As sad as it is, I actually prefer the block voting we get now from our two parties, because at least it usually resolves things. You just have to hope that you are covered by whatever little piece of that tent you fit under.

Border policies

It's a race against time! 2:26 and still 34 minutes to go, but trying to make it a good post too. So for AP Spanish we had to get recent news on immigration policy/laws in spanish, which was absolutely ridiculous, and then have a debate. Spanish teachers are crazy so we never actually had this debate (even though she has been saying "Proximo clase" for like 2 weeks now) but I know the issue pretty good now so I'll report on that. As this is the case, unless you want me to link to the article in spanish I won't have a link this time, but I promise this happened. Also, you know this is your chance to have one of your 3 comments just say "I agree! Spanish teachers ARE crazy!"

So basically the newer border policies are that over the past year or so our country has been abandoning the short detainment then deportation policy that we have been using for a very long time. Instead, somebody came up with the idea that if the detainment periods are much longer, than it might become more of a deterrent than the previous slap on the wrist, now go home. To tell the truth, only hearing this it doesn't sound like such a bad idea. Then I heard what the problems that came along with this. This policy, along with just the standard stricter border control, has led to an increase of over 30% (don't remember the exact number, so I'm probably undershooting it) in illegal immigrant inmates in United States prisons. Now, almost all of our border prisons are completely overcrowded. The Hispanic community is arguing that immigrants are being treated like they aren't even human in these places. Major American newspapers have reported abuses among prison guards specifically targeted at immigrant inmates, and unlike regular inmates immigrant prisoners can basically be transferred to wherever whenever. Part of the reason for these abuses is that federal prisons really try not to take on too many inmates (or they are already overcrowded) so these immigrants are being taken to private prisons where the actions of the guards aren't as strictly regulated. As far as the transferring thing, it has been said that some immigrants have been detained in Texas for a short period of time, then sent all the way to California for another short time, then sent all the way back to Texas for a little while before being deported. This is one of the ways that they are trying to deal with their overcrowding issue. Basically they are being treated worse than regular inmates, even though they really aren't regular inmates. Some people have brought up the fact that they really havn't broken any laws, so they shouldn't even be in the same prisons as regular inmates.

I can't say that I have a solution to these problems, but for now I think we should go back to our old policies on the border. I realized that they were flawed and not really a deterrent, but the results were much more humane that what we are working with now. And I guess that's all I really have to say about that. That was a nice, quality 16 minute post. Hopefully it gets credit.

Why Giuliani can't win anymore

Two words: Pat Robertson. Also known as the craziest person known to man. Even though old people around the country love him. As seen here:http://tinyurl.com/2zd82e. He recently pledged his support to Giuliani, and I really don't know who this hurts more. Let's see on one side we have Pat Robertson, known for being super-religious, in fact that is the only reason that he is an important figure at all. And here he is, supporting a presidential candidate who is pro-abortion. On the other side, we have Giuliani, trying to garner some serious support from the electorate here. I think that people who know who Pat Robertson really is will understand why this move hurts him, and I will devote the rest of this to why Pat Robertson will hurt his chances. Which basically means I get to make fun of Pat Robertson for a while.

To start off, I'm not gonna lie. Half of this is from what I can actually remember of Pat (as I will now call him) and the other half will be from wiki probably or something along those lines. So about thirty years ago Pat Robertson did those wonderful church TV shows in which he managed to perform miracles in front of hundreds of people and many more on TV. People criticized him for being so faithful that God was willing to listen to him when he turned his organ on and picked out people who were obviously not pre-chosen from the crowd, but after that his healing powers were gone. He also once said that Episcopalians, Presbyterians , and Methodists were the spirit of the Antichrist. So obviously, he is a very religious, tolerant man. He announced that his prayers have stopped at least four hurricanes from hitting places he didn't want them to hit, most notably his place of business, though one of the places he claimed to have prayed for actually did get hit. One thing that I do remember that was absolutely wonderful was when he televised a nationwide 3 week prayer about 2 years ago. He wanted the entire country to pray for some vacancies on the Supreme Court, because he hated the people who were currently serving terms.

I know the question that you all want to ask me, "But how does he feel about lesbians?" Yes, I too asked myself this question when hearing of all his other exploits. In Pat's mind, feminism and lesbianism are very closely related. Really he thinks that... well let me directly quote Pat for you, so that you understand his position exactly. Basically, feminism is a "socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism, and become lesbians." What about being gay in general? Is there a problem with that? According to Pat, this is a most grave matter. Any acceptance of homosexuality could lead to hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorist bombings, and even a meteor striking earth. So let's make the clear jump from gays to terrorists here. How did Pat respond to 9-11? Was it the fault of terrorists? Islamic extremism? Who is to blame for 9-11? Who? I must know, tell me Pat! Well when one of his buddies claimed that it was caused by "pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians, the American Civil Liberties Union, and People for the American Way," Pat couldn't help but agree. Of course! Why didn't we lock up all these people before 9-11? And it was right in front of our eyes the whole time.

This is getting long, so I'll just give you a couple more highlights of the long, crazy roller coaster ride that is life with Pat. He once said that it would be good for the country if we nuked the State Department. He said that he thinks we should assassinate Hugo Chavez. In Pennsylvania one area voted out all members of a school board who supported intelligent design. In response, Pat told them not to be surprised if they were hit by some sort of natural disaster (God's wrath) and not to ask for God's help if they were, because they abandoned him. God told Pat that the Iraq war was going to be a mistake (why did we ever doubt him? We must have been crazy). But he didn't tell us this until after, so I guess we couldn't have known better. Ariel Sharon's tragic stroke was the wrath of God. And I'll end this post with a direct quote from Wiki: on one of his shows "Robertson stated that people who have too much plastic surgery "got the eyes like they're Oriental" and stretched his eyelids in a manner stereotypical of Asians." Isn't it sad that these sound like Chuck Norris jokes, except that they actually happened?

In conclusion, if you were Giuliani, would you want this man saying he supported you?

Here is me being controversial

So I've been really bored and couldn't find anything THAT new or interesting to blog about, so I'll go with an ongoing issue and a two week old article that is addressing it. The article is from the Times describing how so sex offenders go untracked: http://tinyurl.com/2xpzqa. So basically because I just feel like these guys (and I say guys because not very many girls are classified as sex offenders) are often judged unfairly, and I think that people already start out with a prejudice against them, I'm going to go ahead and protect the rights of sex offenders in this post. Why? Those reasons, and because I enjoy being controversial and am interested in how people will respond. You'd be surprised at how much stuff I say just to start up some healthy debate, because frankly a lot of people argue without having any real substance to what they are saying. And here we go on this wild ride.

To start off, basically last year a bill was passed (Proposition 83) that forced all sex offenders to be monitored for life (I believe by satellites) and they can't live within 2000 feet of any parks or schools. And as everybody knows, just about everywhere (if not everywhere, I'm not totally sure) sex offenders are required to be registered and I'm fairly certain that anybody can look up where they live, and if there are any in their neighborhoods. I'm pretty sure that you actually have to go tell everybody in your new community personally that you are a registered sex offender and living in their neighborhood, but I can't be positive. That's messed up. Now I understand that this was voted on by the public, and this is what they wanted. But I'm not arguing about that, what I'm saying is that it's unfair, not that it isn't what the public wants. For one, it is totally ridiculous for only sex offenders to have to do this. Let me ask you this question: A man brutally stabs a stranger 5 times when he is 17, but he survives. He serves 20 years in prison, comes back and lives in your neighborhood like nothing happened. Now who would you rather know about: this man or a sex offender? And for that matter, why are sex offenders the only people that get labeled so negatively. I mean besides calling somebody an ex-felon nobody else really gets tagged so badly. And you can never really be an ex-sex offender. Once you make that mistake, it sticks with you the rest of your life.

As far as the rest of your life goes, apparently society just gives up on you after you commit a sex crime. By forcing these people to register and letting the world know about them you are labeling them as dangerous to the community. Do we officially just have no faith in our prison system anymore? Sex offenders are just that hopeless, that they can never be rehabilitated? Or maybe it has actually already been working. According to this site http://www.kare11.com/cs/blogs/scott_goldberg/archive/2006/05/17/1988.aspx, the majority of sex offenders aren't even second time offenders. 92% are first time offenders. So why do we need to do so much harm to the dignity of these people who most likely won't even commit a second crime? Oh right, because we already declared them to be a lost cause. And instead of protecting children in these 2000 feet 'safety zones' from registered sex offenders, maybe we should do something to protect them where they have been proven to be most vulnerable, in their own homes. As it turns out, everybody is WAY more likely to be sexually harassed by people they know, and not by stranger registered sex offenders. So why is there such a prejudice against these people who, just like many other people in America, just made a mistake at some point in their lives?

I just want to tackle one more point before I finish this. Some people say that many sex offenders ARE lost causes because most of the people who commit these crimes do so because they are mentally ill, and as such they should be monitored etc. etc. Well if this is the case and they are mentally ill, then they can't really be criminals can they? At that point they would obviously no longer be capable of being in any state of mind to control their own actions, and as such should not get such a bad stigma for doing things that they can't even control.

As you can see, anti-sex offender laws really don't make any of us that much more safe. At worst, you can probably admit that the resources and time used on these laws could have been better allocated. Most of these people did their time AND their probationary time, so why do we need to make them suffer more?

Sucks to be a Republican

So that time I said I would make this post entertaining... I lied. Thats due to some mix of laziness, other homework, an unwarranted preoccupation with football, and that my life might depend on listening to B5 and Omarion right now. Whatever the case, this post will be more lame than I want it to be.

On Sunday night the Republicans had a debate in Florida that turned out to be one of the more exciting debates for that party this year. It all started when former Senator Fred Thompson decided to blast his presidential rival but party-mate Rudolph W. Giuliani for stances on abortion and “sanctuary cities” for illegal immigrants. He declared that Rudy Giuliani supports gun control, supported a Democratic candidate over a Republican candidate, and is too similar in his personal views to Hillary Clinton. Giuliani decided to not just stand pat and take it, but rather he shot right back at Fred Thompson with some fire of his own. He immediately returned by asking why he sided with trial lawyers instead of GOP senators, and attacked his voting record on things that Giuliani said would “make our legal system fairer.” Giuliani also attacked Thompson’s lack of executive experience, while simultaneously defending the aforementioned sanctuary cities. But it wasn’t just among these two. Senator McCain got into it with Mitt Romney over his previous statements. And again, it became very clear that nobody really had the support of the religious right in the election.

I personally think it is sad the state that the Iraq war has left the Republican Party in. What was supposed to be a debate really just turned into 90% of the candidates bashing each other and pointing out their flaws. At this rate they will never win the election, no matter who wins the nomination. The only thing they ever really agreed on was that they needed to bash Hillary Clinton all the time. And that probably won't win any of them the election.