Monday, May 19, 2008
Thou Shall Not Kill
Friday, May 16, 2008
Guns don't kill people, PEOPLE kill people...with guns
Today's issue was gun control. An interesting debate. Conservatives lobby for harder punishments against criminals using guns and claim that "guns don't kill people... people kill people". Their main argument however is that guns are used for mainly for protection, sport, and are harmless inanimate objects which people manipulate for the wrong reasons. Just because people are violent and shoot each other, doesn't mean guns are the problem. On the other hand, liberals recognize that punishment for crimes involving guns has actually gotten tougher in the past several years, and that the main objective in gun control is to prevent gun crimes before they happen. If guns are less available and more difficult to obtain, the chances of them getting into the wrong hands are significantly decreased.
Being the liberal that I am, I agree completely with stricter gun laws and more gun control. While conservatives argue it infringes on their 2nd amendment rights, the fact remains that America has the highest gun-related mortality rate out of any other developed country. Too many people are injured or killed by guns to ignore the fact that harder punishment clearly isn't working, and that prevention would be much more effective. With the amount of school shootings in the past decade (Columbine, Virginia Tech, Northern Illinois...) and the amount of other gun related massacres (sniper shootings), punishment after-the-fact will do NOTHING to stop shootings from happening. Punishing the criminal won't give any victims their lives back. The entire "people kill people" argument just seems hilarious. If people kill people, then why would anyone want to provide them with guns?
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Marriage for love? GASP.
Personally, I think it is a person's right to marry whoever they love. Conservatives' point that marriage is for procreation is the most far-fetched justification I've ever heard, especially since there are many cases of heterosexual couples who are unable to conceive. Does that mean a marriage is worthless is the couple is sterile? Also, I feel the "sanctity" of marriage is brought down more by one-night-stand-type Vegas marriages, reality tv shows advertising marriage to a stranger, and our country's extremely high divorce rates (one in two marriages are estimated to end in divorce) rather than same-sex marriages. Marriage is about love. And if two men or two women love each other, who has the right to tell them they can't be together? I think the real argument beneath this is not the sanctity of marriage or procreation or religion or the well-being of the child (since supposedly kids raised by same-sex parents will have emotional problems)... I think its just Conservatives' extreme homophobia.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Its cool, I wasn't using my civil liberties anyway.
Personall, im extremely pro-choice. The last time I checked, none of the old white men currently running our country ever had to deal with the prospect of becoming pregnant whith an unwanted child. In fact, last time I checked, many of these men don't even have a uterus. Now maybe things have changed, but I don't know. All I really know is that NO ONE, especially the government, should have the right to tell a woman what she is and is not allowed to do with her body. Having a child is a life-changing decision, and the government has absolutely no right to intrude on something like that. A baby is unable to live on its own before the third trimester, and the mother is more than some faceless incubator giving the fetus "life support". She should have a right to have a say in what happens to her. All in all, I believe that the government has no right to dictate what women are and are not allowed to do with their bodies, and their lives. Especially since 99% of the people who would be making the decision can't even begin to empathize with a pregnant woman faced with this decision, seeing as how they are men. Men don't get pregnant, men don't have babies, and men aren't faced with either of these things if raped. If men were faced with pregnancy and the prospect of caring for an unwanted child, I would bet my life that the government wouldn't even question the right to have an abortion.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Arguable... but lets be honest
What is the difference between liberal and conservative?
Even though my definition is biased, I believe that the terms “liberal” and “conservative” signify very different things. While liberals tend to stand for philanthropy, helping others, advocating for progress and open-mindedness, conservatives tend to focus mainly on their own personal gain, the idea of “tradition”, and the neglect of those of a lower status than themselves. Liberals are often more skeptical of their government and advocate for freedom of personal choice. They are also often criticized as being hippies and idealists. On the other hand, conservatives tend to trust their government wholeheartedly with the belief that their government is out for the people’s best interest, and in terms of poverty and health care, would rather not deal with things that don’t affect them personally. Conservatives are criticized as being greedy, self-righteous, overly traditional (difficulty in separating church and state, homosexual issues, etc.) and uneducated (President Bush).
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Authenticity is a made up word if you're referring to the media
What is authentic about YOUR teen subcluture? Does your generation have anything that it can call it's own? If there is nothing authentic about your culture, discuss how you feel about that. Does this even matter to you?
Personally, I don’t think my generation really has much that it can call its own. The things we do call our own are manufactured products that remind us of our generation. For example, just about everyone my age remembers Crazy Bones, Pogs, and other marketed products that were all the rage in elementary school. I’m sure the girls remember wearing butterfly hairclips in 5th grade and using gelly-roll pens, and I’m sure most of the guys were obsessed with finger skateboards around the same time. Our culture and the thing we enjoyed were (and still are) manufactured; packaged and sold to us with the intent of making us want to collect and buy more, or just to make other people buy into the product. So agreeing with part of the question, I don’t think our culture has much authenticity. We’re spoon-fed different trends, and as soon as something sticks, EVERYONE wants it (example: Ugg boots). We’re not given a whole lot of room to think for ourselves. And as soon as we do come up with something original, its taken and marketed. Even though its obnoxious from my point of view, that the media has to exploit literally everything we might be interested in, its not something I mourn over on a daily basis. Living in America, that’s what we do: We sell things to make money.
I’m not a terribly eclectic person… I generally go with the flow of our culture. Now that more alternative/”indie” music is being marketed, yes, I’m buying into it. Is it annoying that the market seems to seek and destroy just about anything teens like? Yes. Extremely annoying. BUT, at the same time, it doesn’t really matter that much. If the media is going to get to it anyway, what’s the point in complaining about it? I completely agree that its pathetic that the media has marketed us our culture (from manufactured goods to our attitudes), but at the same time, that’s life in our country. Personally it doesn’t matter that much to me, since I still feel like I can be myself, and I don’t feel like the products I buy define me as a person. But to sum everything up, its true: Our generation doesn’t have much of an authentic culture.