If I Were King of the United States

Another Topic du Jour.

We would all live in the projects. There would be no such thing as private houses anymore. All the projects would have the same basic design, structure, materials, etc. The rent would be thirty percent of your income.

Five years of college or a bachelor's degree (whichever comes first) would be mandatory and funded in much the same way as the rest of the public school system. Which would mean that by the SAT/ACT standards of most state universities, there would be none of the functionally illiterate high school graduates that are running around now.

Military service would be mandatory for two years after high school and before college, because a.) you never know when you might need a largish standing army and b.) you value citizenship more when you have to defend it. Pacifists will be given non-combat duties but still expected to serve. People who want to stay in the military will have that option after college.

Voting at the state and national levels would be mandatory. Anyone not voting would be subject to double taxes.

Community service would be mandatory. At least eight hours a month volunteering at any non-profit organization.

Everyone would have Medicaid. To hell with the insurance companies.

...More later. Tomorrow is gonna be a long day and it's way past my bedtime.

Self Destruction/Improvement

I've always believed in a changeable model of human nature. That is, that people are basically stupid and self-centered, but can change when they want to. Well, the self-centered part, anyway. Like the comedian said, you can't fix stupid. You can, however, deal with little individual stupidities of thought and action.

But it seems like every time I put this belief into practice, whether it's for me or on the behalf of someone else, it's just ridiculously difficult. I mean hard all out of proportion to what it seems like it should be. Humans have a psycho-spiritual inertia that would rival a black hole.

I think I'm finally beginning to understand why, though, and it's tricky, so pay attention. We identify with our problems. Our bad habits and ugly character traits feel good to us in some way or allow us to be lazy in some way. This makes it hard to change them. But over and above all that, we feel that the bad things are part of who we are.

Since we don't want to destroy ourselves, we resist changing. This kind of occurred to me when I saw Fight Club, but it seemed too trite at the time. The whole headlong rush to self-destruction as a means of self-improvement thing. I still don't really buy it, not on that scale.

I do think, though, that unless we're prepared to embrace some self-destructive behavior, nothing changes. It helps if you have something besides yourself to change for. A kid, a love interest, family, hell a deity if you must. Because for most people rationally knowing you should change just doesn't have enough power to overcome our inertia.

Religion and Spirituality

Today you get two for the price of one because I was zonked out of my head on medicine yesterday. Of course, I'm in serious need of a good sleep at the moment, so it may just be six of one and half a dozen of the other. Anyway, let's get on with this.

Religion is like dandruff: almost everyone has it and most people seem to derive a fair bit of pleasure from fiddling with it. That's paraphrasing Heinlein, since I can't lay my hands on the book to check the exact words. The point is well made, though. As humans, historically we like our religion. We like to play with it, just like we like to play with all our other toys, in the same competitive fashion. The whole "My God's better than your God" thing.

It's tied up with a way of thinking that should run directly counter to our evolution. Religion is based on the concept that belief should override the evidence of the senses. It's a very antiquated way of looking at things, and yet shockingly applicable to modern times as well. Because as I posted earlier, how many of us are really scientifically literate? This continued ignorance definitely fosters religion in society, because if we can not understand everyday things and yet they still work, why shouldn't there be gods who are just as mysterious?

But I think ignorance and the search for mental and emotional comfort is only part of the answer. The rest is spirituality. Or at least, what I take to be spirituality. Bear with me.

We have a need to not only be part of something greater than ourselves, but to invest qualities, values, even emotions into things that really don't (sometimes shouldn't) have them already. From this need spring morality, ethics, religion, patriotism and so on.

Please note: I'm not saying that either religion or spirituality are bad things. I am both religious and spiritual myself and I expect to hear about this post from my gods in no uncertain terms. We just have a problem with accepting this need as a part of ourselves. We make excuses: "It's how I was raised." or "God told me so." or "Such and such a book spoke to me." And then we get defensive when we're called on it.

I am of the opinion that just as the more rational parts of the mind developed to understand and use the world around us more efficiently, so did the irrational parts develop to help us understand and use the subtler connections between us and between us and the world. Just like any other trait some people have a more pronounced tendency to display one or the other, but I think we all have the capacity for both rational and irrational (magical, mystical, whatever) thought.

Just my opinion. I'm now going to go and make sure my house is well-grounded.

Topic du Jour: Politics

Another TdJ because I promised myself I would do this daily and I'm sick as a dog, so originality is not my friend today.

Getting to the point, then. I'm a little irritated with our president. I like him. I voted for him. So far, he's tried to get things done that need to be done. He started out in a horrible position and has handled it pretty well so far. Just think what dubyuh would be doing right now if he were still in charge...yeah.

But I'm irritated on three fronts. First, the health care thing. It's one of those things whose time has come. All he had to do was keep laying the shame on Congress, maybe make a few PSAs to drive things home. But no. Now we're waiting.

Second, the gun thing. This is America. We need our guns. We feel all puny and insignificant without them. And - most telling - they would be in our hands were they legal or not. So, he needs to get up on a podium and make it clear. Something along the lines of, "I'm not going to try to take away your guns. Period. Now quit bringing them to my speeches."

And third. I sent an email to the white house not too long ago and requested an answer (some links to information on pending legislation). To be honest all I expected was a form letter thanking me for my interest and so on. Instead, I got a piece of propaganda that had only the slightest bearing on what I had asked. The same one my wife got when she asked for a response on a completely different issue. Seriously? Is our government so cheap that they let volunteers do this? Or an automated system? This is what we can expect from the most technically literate president we've ever had?

For shame. I'm gonna vote for Cthulu next time around.

Topic Du Jour

In keeping with an idea I found on Litemind, here is the Topic du Jour: Home. For those of you unfamiliar with this exercise, this is where I ramble on for a few paragraphs about said topic, probably not reaching anything so lofty as a conclusion.

So without further ado:

What makes a place home? Comfort, peace, a sense of ease? The kitchen? The bedroom? A boundary drawn between the chaotic evils of the world and ourselves?

And, of course, let's not forget congenial company. Family, relations, friends, acquaintances. Well, maybe not acquaintances. And the gods. (Or God, if you prefer.)

All of these are parts of home, but the whole - the ideal - is both larger and simpler.

Someone's home is an intimate description of them: their sense of aesthetics, cleanliness, religion, literacy, etcetera ad nauseum. For example, I'm a messy slob - my home reflects this. I love food, as the wear and patina of use in the kitchen testifies. I'm a spiritual person as evidenced by what for lack of a better word we call the altar room. And so on.

Chez moi. My place.