Seriously Supreme Court of CA?

This was written by a friend of mine who is my age:

I feel I now must rant out of disappointment.

1. We are a democratic republic. Not a democracy. Our founding fathers' realized that in reality, the general public is not fit to make decisions for itself, and that the ability to give people the right to vote for action anonymously and as a group only leads to the manifestation of mob mentality. This is why we elect representatives, like the senate, congressmen, and executives.

2. They further realized that even these people might not make the right decision or do the right thing, so they set up a system for them to all be able to balance each other. Yet, know that these people might be but from a very similar cloth, they instituted a final check, the supreme courts, who were to act as agents of law to insure that nothing was done beyond the scope of power.

3. Legislators make the law, so how can courts rule about what is lawful? In reality, their job when it comes to ruling on "constitutionality". They do this by seeing if a law somehow conflicts with the "spirit" of the constitution, also called the intent.

Now onto the main point:

"Tuesday's ruling found that the proposition restricted the designation of marriage 'while not otherwise affecting the fundamental constitutional rights of same-sex couples,' as Chief Justice Ronald George wrote."

His argument is that it says that it is illegal to call the union marriage, but no other right is affected, thus constitutionality is maintained.

1. Did we not learn that separate but equal is not equal?

2. His words lead one to believe that this issue is what we call it, the word marriage. Why is this an issue? Well, seemingly because it has a religious connotation, and in our country the many of the religious sects that use this word also believe that same sex marriage is immoral. Well, if that is the case allow me to reference something that might matter to this decision:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

The first amendment. By saying that the calling it marriage is what is illegal, you are certainly "abridging the freedom of speech." By saying that it is a religious issue and a religious union, you are certainly prohibiting the free exercise of religion. It doesn't matter, even if their religion involves only wanting to get married, as long as it does not in itself infringe of the rights of others, it is legally their right to practice is freely and without legal discrimination. So that argument certainly doesn't work.

But that argument is pointless, since something more general exists:

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

Is the right to be married one retained by the people? Is the right to call your marriage a marriage one retained by the people? Seeing as the idea behind our government is that it is one "by the people, and for the people" then a right retained by the people is one they believe that they (every person), should have. And the best way to find out if they believe this is a right is to take it from them.

Imagine if any state tried to make marriage illegal, or calling your marriage a marriage illegal. You would see the arguments I just made (freedom of practice of religion, free speech) come up so fast that the federal supreme court would overturn that ruling in a heartbeat. If people disagree, lets try it, lets remove marriage for everyone. If it doesn't remove any rights, as the California Chief Justice claims, it wont harm anyone or change anything anyway. We can all have civil unions.

But that would cause an uproar, so obviously there are some rights being denied here, yet no one will step up and say it. The president says is pro gay rights, then he is con. The Federal Supreme Court says it is not their job to decide, it is up to the states. California says its not our job, make the people decide.
Which obviously goes against the structure of our government.

Hopefully time will change people slowly, and eventually all this foolishness will stop, at least in the legal sense, but for now it appears Justice is only blind literally.

1: About Belief

I've written and rewritten this particular post several times. But I'm going to skip all the explanations, all the backstory, all the everything, and let my thoughts speak for themselves. If you want backstory, or to talk to me about this more, I'm at Aandail@gmail.com.

To begin, it starts with a bit of a kernel of thought. So many of us, especially here in America, live our lives as through our religion is *right* and everyone else is *wrong*. We live this way in order to have something firm to base our morals and beliefs on. We say "I may be wrong, but the Bible is right, and as long as I say what the Bible says, I can't be wrong then."

This is something that was recently said to me, and I understand where they are coming from.

My thought is, do we really know? We can't know for certain God exists. He doesn't work that way. Nor do other gods. People claim to "feel" God, but so do many. I would like to begin by postulating that there is no way that any of us can know for a FACT that their God exists. I'm not saying he/she isn't out there, just that you can't know. And most Christians will say that knowing would detract from that whole faith thing you're supposed to have.

Ok, so nobody knows for certain their religious view is absolutely 100% correct. They may believe with almighty fervor, but they don't KNOW.

If this is true, we all live in a perpetual state of belief, not knowledge. My view may not be correct, but I believe it is. Just as I might believe you're wrong, but I don't know if you are. The problem is, most of us don't think like that. We think that because we believe, we must be right, and if we're right, they're wrong, end of story. If we can believe we're wrong, then we're not believing hard enough.

When we do that, we're living inside a bubble, a bubble which non-believers not only can't penetrate, but don't want to.

You have to understand why someone says what they do, before you can offer the best possible answer to them. You have to empathize.

So if I say that we don't know whether there is any pluralism to God, or whether we are actually right, you should understand that it's not because I believe it is so. I just want to approach my faith as if it's what makes the most sense to me. And my faith might look odd to you, but if you looked at it too, you would see that it will make sense to you too, and yet I might see your faith oddly.

Let me put this another way. If I were a youth pastor, instead of telling them what they should believe and telling them to tell others, I would tell them what I believe and why, and that they should take what makes sense to them out of that. And when they meet their classmate who is a Muslim, instead of trying to convince them that Allah is a false god (cause I don't know, and neither do you!) and saying they will go to hell, I hope they will say "This is my God, this is what He does for me, and He loves you too."

Our youth shouldn't have words put into their mouths that they need only spit back out at whoever. They need to be empowered, to really think about and understand what it is they believe, so that they can evangelize with every breath they take.

Coming from a short lifetime of words and thoughts attempting to be shoved into my mouth, I know I always responded better when someone said, "This is what I think, what do YOU think?"

I've been on a tear recently talking to most of those who will listen. Some have said, "Good, I understand what you're trying to do, and it's commendable." Others have basically said, "No, I can't understand this, you're trying to undercut my belief." I'm not, but I understand why you think so.

I'm not sure of what I'm saying. I don't know. I'm trying to find out what makes the most sense to me. Maybe you all can help me find that. And maybe you'll find it for yourself. Come disagree with me, come refine, poke out my fallacies. This is the first post in a series about Christianity, stay tuned.

This is what I think, what do YOU think?

This Democracy of Hypocrisy

For those of you not paying any attention, Israel recently invaded Gaza (Palestine) in an attempt to cease all extremist behavior. This was after many attempts on both sides to keep the peace. The fragile ceasefire that was in effect in December ended, and some Palestinians shot two rockets into Israel. Israel responded in what can only be described as understandable frustration, and put boots into Gaza. Hundreds of civilians died in the hunt for those responsible, the Red Cross was not let in to aid the innocent, and it was generally a tense debacle.

Now, there is a new ceasefire, which will once again be at danger of shattering at any second, as one or the other side waits for the other to do something stupid. There isn't any real proactive solution, because of the fundamental problem. Religious nationalism, on BOTH sides.

This is the interesting part. America, as led by our presidents, have traditionally been extremely pro-Israel, for a variety of reasons. We condemned the Palestinians for not being a democratic society, and THEN condemned them for democratically electing someone who WE didn't want them to elect. This is a pattern through the last forty years of American foreign policy (and probably longer). You elect who WE want you to, or we will overthrow your DEMOCRATIC government to install despots who are pro-America.

Despicable, eh? Imagine this. We march into Afghanistan in the name of democracy (like we sorta did) overthrowing the Taliban. Bush proclaims a victory for liberty and democracy, and hail the elections as a victory for America. Then the Afghan people elect the Taliban back. That'd be a bit of an embarrasment, wouldn't it?! Oh wait...

So why were we there, what was the end result? All we did was force the country to democratically do the same thing they'd been doing. No difference, just a slightly more liberal society that... oh, they throw acid at girls going to school? Oops.

What if Iraq, who would greet us as liberators, had democratically re-elected Saddam? If the country had been 51% Sunni, we might have seen this happen. What a blow for democracy then! Except it wouldn't be, it would merely be a blow for Bush and America.

We need to stop equating democracy with America. We need to stop thinking countries NEED democracy when public opinion is served every day there isn't a revolution. What we're doing is turning Palestine from a nationalistic peaceful nation who just wanted their homeland to a religiously fundamental society who views the world not in borders, but in gods, at the expense of hundreds of innocents.

This is our doing. America's doing. We're responsible, and we can fix this. Not through forcing our viewpoint onto the world that won't change because we tell it to, but through diplomacy, through smart power, through people who have a passion for keeping the world from fighting.

I'm a Music Lovuh Too...

Well, I talk about music a lot, given that my immediate friends have wildly varying tastes. Two of my closest friends love Showtunes or anything from any musical ever written, yet one also dabbles in country, Cher, and the like while the other has the entire discography of HIM (and all that entails, hee hee).

So I thought it's time for a personal look back at the music that has been our foundation of what we listen to every day, and what kinds of music influences us constantly. Hopefully this will be sufficiently different from my colleauge's post. So beginning with myself:

I grew up a steadfast Christian, listening to boring hymns every single Sunday. But my brother had copies of Metallica's Black Album (that I don't remember ever listening to) and Offspring's Smash (which I do). Needless to say, Offspring was a keen reminder that there was a world outside repetitive worship songs and extra-mind-numbing hymns. At the same time I was listening to Delirious and Jars of Clay, I was also listening to Metallica's S&M double album and more on-the-fence bands like Creed. But your musical taste can only reflect what you hear, and as such, I liked bands my brother likes, because he was the sole source of the music I listened to.

It wasn't until my family moved that I began to search the world for music that I could have as my own. Interactions with far-reaching friends led me to take interest in bands like Evanescence, and A Perfect Circle. I listened to them incessently, as bands I've never really heard the likes of before. But the obvious progressions of Evanescence and APC respectively were their more extreme brother bands, Within Temptation and Nightwish (for Evanescence) and Tool (for APC). I fell in love instantly.

Nightwish and Within Temptation are symphonic/opera metal bands. Orchestras back drums and electric guitars, with operatic female singers at the helm. It is epic, it is fantastical, and it encompasses every emotion. You can headbang, you can sway, and so on. My brother, who goes for the epic, loud sounds, latched on, and last Halloween ('07) we went to a concert in Seattle, and generally had a good time, not counting the morons we had to deal with.

Tool is another, deeper direction. They are a thoughtful, insanely talented band, where every song is influenced by each member. Nobody is left out, and each member can be cited as one of the best in their field. To illustrate, Maynard James Keenan is their most well-known member, as the lead singer of both Tool and A Perfect Circle, but he doesn't write any of the music, just the lyrics. Their grammy winning song, "Schism," has a heavy riff everyone has heard, created by their bassist, Justin Chancellor.

They are a bit of a polarizing group, as their fans tend to be hardcore zealots, and completely elitist (yes, I admit it). But it's difficult to ignore their talent, and even those who have heard and don't want to listen to their music admit that they are quite good (I'm looking at you, big bro).

I look at these three bands as the platform for all the other music I listen to, be it U2 and Coldplay or Metallica and Korn, Lacuna Coil, Anberlin, Rise Against and on and on.

Now, what music has left you speechless, has had you begging for more? What music are you a fangirl or fanboy for, and what music in your childhood set the stage for your current headbanging material?

And yes, I will look up bands I hear about that I don't know about already. So list a ton!

What We Say Goes

If anyone has read Noam Chomsky, you may have unleashed the destruction of some of your foundational beliefs you may have had since kindergarten. Noam Chomsky is a very influential linguist and sociology professor at MIT, and is one of the most brilliant men of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I recently read a book of his interviews, essentially summing up his political science views.

The keys were simple: America is a menace on the world stage. We have been so powerful for so long that our audaciousness has reached such hypocritical levels that if we were to submit to the very international laws we pridefully support, we would be humbled to the point of nonexistence.

There are very clear international laws, made by the Geneva Conventions, the UN/NATO, and the WTO most significantly. The problem with these laws is that only the nations that aren't the most powerful nation are policed by them. The select few otherwise cannot be held accountable unless you go to war with them. In the case of going to war against the U.S., probably still the most powerful nation in the world, that's a most unhealthy proposition.

The overall effect of this is that the U.S. does whatever it wants, and the rest of the world be damned. We topple anti-US, completely democratic regimes... in the name of freedom, in order to install pro-US despots that massacre their own population, but smile at the US while they do it. This is the height of hypocrisy, a tragic happenstance of a country too big for it's britches.

Does our country promote freedom and democracy? Do you still believe that? Or are we merely the biggest bullies on the block, with so much power that our abilities have become such that we believe it is our national duty to abuse our powers. What are your thoughts? Agree, disagree? Do you remember events in your childhood where it occurred to you that you might be being more or less brainwashed?

Oh, You Music Lovers!

Recently, I was sifting through Facebook while doing all the normal interwebby-series-of-tubey things I do. I came across a posting of a Tool fan who ranted about the nature of some Tool fans who had gone so completely overboard with their obsessiveness that they seemed like cultists and became rather annoying to those who just wanted to honestly love Tool and live out the rest of their lives. The conversation degenerated, of course, but it was thought provoking.

As a Tool fan myself, I know exactly where these other fans are coming from. I could go down that road myself if I so chose. I could quit any semblance of building for my future, name any kids I have "Maynard," follow the band on any tour, and get Lateralus tattoos all over my body. I don't do this because I think for myself, incorporate many opinions into my world view, and generally do not think Maynard is a prophet. Tool is an ubertalented band, my favorite for sure, but that doesn't mean I must devote my life to them.

To get back on track, at no point in time should a music fan ever become so obsessed with a particular band that they scorn anyone who doesn't love that band, and speak of the band as if they're on a higher plane. I shouldn't be able to listen to you, exchange every "Maynard" for "Jesus" and think you were hella on fire for God. That of course, could go with anything, be it sports teams, your own country, or whatever you may think of.

And of course, it is perfectly OK to have things you love affect you. For example, I think who I am has been largely defined by a small number of fictional characters in fantasy novels that I read when I was young. I said: "I admire that person, and will attempt to emulate their morals and standards as much as possible," perhaps subconsciously. Originally it was Kerbouchard, from Louis L'Amour's amazing book, "The Walking drum." Or Richard Cypher, from the Sword of Truth books, for example.

What books/songs/bands/people have had such an impact on your life, that they shape and model the very way you think and act?