America doesn’t have an official language for a reason

So many people have this notion that everybody who lives in the United States should be required to speak English. While I understand the frustration that a lack of communication can cause, I do not agree with this idea. America was founded specifically without an official language for a reason. Our founding fathers understood that the dominant or default way of doing something should not deter other less common alternatives, and this is arguably the single most important aspect of what our country stands for. It is what allows people to be themselves. Expecting other people to conform to your behaviors is simply wrong, regardless of whether it is spoken language, religion, sexual expression, taste in music, or anything else. Figure out a way to work out your differences. Be creative. Just don’t think your way is the only way.

Churches preach what people believe

A brief thought from November 15th, 2009.

Churches preach what people believe. I used to think that people believed what the church preached, but it’s actually the other way around. It’s much more likely that someone will choose a church that matches their beliefs than it is for a person to change their beliefs to match what a particular church preaches. Not that the latter can’t or doesn’t happen, just that most people prefer to change something else rather than change themselves.

Don’t you have anything more important to worry about?

Some straight, homophobic people claim that their marriage or relationship is negatively affected by the legalization of gay marriage. This is absolutely absurd. Saying that a straight couple’s marriage is affected by a gay couple’s marriage is like saying that how much you like the meal you ordered at a restaurant is affected by the meal that someone at another tabled ordered. In other words, it’s a load of bullshit. There is simply no way that one affects the other.

At the restaurant, you don’t know the person at the other table and you weren’t eating their food. You probably didn’t even order the same item from the menu, and even if you did, your taste palette is completely different from the other person’s. Similarly, when compared to marriage, you can’t possibly know all the other people who are getting married or what their relationships are like. And, even if you do know a gay couple who is married, you are not a member of that relationship, so what happens in that relationship does not affect you, just like other straight couples’ relationships do not affect you.

You can only be affected by things you are involved with. The simple fact that you know there are gay people getting married somewhere in the world is not a reason to be bothered by it or even care about it. It is no different than the fact that you know other people are eating different kinds of food elsewhere. Yes, it happens. No, it has nothing to do with you. The only people who obsess about things that don’t affect them usually have some kind of mental disorder.

When you’re at that restaurant, you don’t even pay attention to what other people are eating. At the very most, you might notice a tray go by and say something like, “that looks good” or “I’m glad I didn’t order that!” But you certainly don’t remain fixated on whatever is on the tray. It’s some other person’s food, not yours. It slips out of your mind pretty quickly. You care about your own food and maybe that of the person you are eating with, but not some random person’s. So why would you even care who someone else is getting married to? Why would you become and stay so obsessed about someone else’s relationship? It’s just totally irrational. Get over it.

If you don’t like it, that’s fine. Nobody is forcing you to marry somebody you don’t want to marry, just like at a restaurant, there is nobody forcing you to order a meal you don’t want. On the same note, though, you also cannot force someone else to order a meal they do not want or tell them they can’t order something they like. In a similar fashion, it is wrong to tell someone else who they can or cannot marry. Doing so would be rude and disrespectful. It makes you sound like an asshole.

That’s really the point. Don’t be an asshole. Be respectful of other people, even (or, especially) if they have different tastes than you do. Don’t try to impose your preference on them. Mind your own business and let perfectly capable people make their own decisions based on what they know to be true about themselves. And if you really do find that you just can’t get something out of your mind, that’s probably your brain’s way of telling you that you should probably give it a try.

Related quote:

“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.” -Friedrich Nietzsche

Universal healthcare is not the same as government healthcare

One very unfortunate thing that is becoming painfully clear is that a lot of people apparently don’t know what “universal healthcare” actually means. Many, possibly even most people in the United States, at least according to my own experiences, think a universal healthcare system is either one that is run by the government or one that is paid for by the government. Neither of these are correct. Universal healthcare is not government healthcare, and in fact does not necessarily have anything to do with the government.

When the word “universal” is used to describe something, it simply means that it applies to everyone. It is something that everyone has or something that everyone is required to have. That’s it.

One example of a universal insurance system is auto insurance. Most states in the United States require that you have some kind of auto insurance if you drive a car. It is mandatory in those states. The fact that everyone must have it makes it universal. But remember, even though you have to have auto insurance if your drive, the government has nothing to do with it. You don’t buy your auto insurance policy from the government, and the government doesn’t fix your car if you get into an accident. You buy your insurance from a company, and you have a company fix your car. There is no government involvement, but it is still universal insurance because it is required for everyone.

Similarly, if universal health insurance existed in the United States, all that would mean is that everyone would be required to have health insurance of some kind. You could choose to have a small, basic policy, or you could have a much bigger, more expensive policy that covers absolutely everything. You would still have that choice, just like you do when you are deciding what kind of auto insurance policy to have, but you would have to have something. You would also continue to purchase your health insurance policy from a company, and you would continue to be treated by a privately practicing doctor. Simply enacting universal health insurance would not have any effect on any of that, by definition. It would just mean that everyone would have to have health insurance, rather than whatever percentage of people have it today.

It is true that if something like a government run public option to provide health insurance to people were enacted, it would mean that the government would get involved in the health insurance industry. However, it is important to realize that a public option is not the same thing as universal health insurance. The idea of universal health insurance refers to the number of people it covers, whereas a public (or private) option refers to the method in which insurance is provided. They are two separate concepts which do not necessarily go together. They can, but they don’t have to. So, you can have universal health insurance without a government run health insurance option, or you can have public option without having universal coverage. Or, you can also have both or neither of them. The point is that the number of people covered has no relationship to the way people are covered.

Universal healthcare is not the same as government healthcare. Many people get them confused or think that they are the same thing, but they are not. Take note of the difference and think about each of them separately as the distinct concepts that they are.

Generally speaking, the Tea Party movement isn’t actually that radical

February marks the one year anniversary of the Tea Party movement. I thought it would be worth some time to investigate the movement a little bit on my own since all I have heard regarding it are the very different positions taken by well known journalists and political commentators. Two of the things I found that surprised me are the popularity of the movement and the fact that its members are actually not resolutely loyal to the Republican Party. The most curious thing, though, is that the Tea Party actually has less to do with taxes than one would initially think.

The only thing all Tea Party movement members have in common is a concern about excessive levels of government spending. There are widespread differences beyond this core issue. In fact, several different groups have sprung up within the Tea Party, each of which has a different set of opinions about other issues. For example, there a contingent of people with libertarian political ideals within the Tea Party movement whose conservatism only applies to fiscal issues. On social issues, these libertarian-leaning members are much more liberal. This level of diversity within the movement has even led to disputes about certain issues, similar to what we saw on display by Democrats in Congress as they debated healthcare reform. The difference, of course, is that the Tea Party isn’t actually a real political party that needs to come to a consensus. They are just a political movement, so disagreements on side issues do not have as much of a paralyzing effect on their momentum as it has on the Democrats.

Taxes are often cited as being another major focus of the Tea Party, but my finding is that the real point of contention is what that tax money is being spent on, not necessarily the tax rate itself. Therefore, the perception that the Tea Party is (ironically) protesting high taxes when the Obama administration actually lowered them for most people is mostly a falsehood. While some Tea Party activists have indeed protested against high taxes, the sense I’m getting from looking into this is that most Tea Party members wouldn’t complain about the current tax rates if their money wasn’t being spent in ways they fundamentally disagreed with. Their focus has much more to do with what the money is spent on, and less on how it is generated. (The historical context of the name Tea Party also adds to the notion that it’s more about taxes than it really is.)

Regarding the political affiliations of the Tea Party members, there is certainly a strong sense of conservatism. After all, their main goal is to stop uncontrolled government spending, and cutting expenses is something that is traditionally part of the conservative ideal. However, the movement’s sense of independence is even stronger. Contrary to what many people, including myself, initially assume, there is neither comprehensive support for the Republican Party nor universal condemnation of the Democratic Party. Any politician, regardless of party, who spends excessively and wastes taxpayer money in the eyes of a Tea Party movement member is blamed. More often than not, Democrats are more in favor of policies that require spending lots of money than Republicans are, so they do indeed tend to shoulder a larger portion of the blame, but it is not one-sided.

My interpretation is that most members of the Tea Party movement do not have an underlying anti-Democratic or anti-Obama sentiment. This feeling of being upset with uncontrolled government spending, many people say, started long before Barack Obama was ever elected president. Many of them recognized that the Bush administration spent far too much money and sent our country plunging deep into debt without any real way of paying it off. I think that alone just wasn’t enough for people to take action, though. The level of anger just wasn’t high enough yet. The pressure was starting to build, however, and it kept growing until it was unleashed by the actions the government took during the economic crisis. The bailouts of all those banks, insurance companies and car manufacturers, along with what was seen as a watered-down, ineffective stimulus program acted as the triggers for people to form this movement. And, even though the desire to keep government spending low is traditionally a conservative value, the Tea Party is flexible enough to place blame on both sides specifically because it is a movement largely made up of independent voters who are not loyal to either major party.

I’m getting the sense that the fact the Tea Party started when it did (in early 2009, right after Obama took office) was more coincidental than it was a reaction to Obama in general. Anti-spending opinions were growing for a while, the economic crisis hit, the government stepped in and spent more, and there was Obama transitioning into office. So, while part of it is that he certainly did add to the spending and his Congress passed an arguably lackluster stimulus bill which not only added to but also triggered the release of all the outrage started by the previous administration, the other part of it is that he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time because anyone regardless of party who stepped into the presidency at that time would have become the iconic target of this movement. Everything I have read and seen and heard leads me to believe that the Tea Party movement is more concerned with spending than it is with politics in general. I can pretty confidently say that this movement probably would not have occurred or at least not gained nearly the amount of traction it has if the economy had not collapsed in late 2008 because all the bailout money and stimulus money would not have been spent. The trigger for the movement would probably not have happened.

Unfortunately, the economic recession and all its related spending did happen. The Tea Party movement was born, and its popularity has now reached the point where if it was a legitimate political party, its influence would rival (and weaken) both major parties. In a way, it’s doing that even now, without being a real party. This popularity can be inferred from several polls taken in recent months. First, a Rasmussen poll from December 7th, 2009, found that a hypothetical Tea Party candidate would win 23% of the vote in a generic ballot, compared to a 36% plurality for the Democrats with the Republicans picking up just 18% of the vote. Second, in a Wall Street Journal and NBC News poll conducted on the 16th of that month, 41% of respondents said they had a “favorable” or “somewhat favorable” view of the Tea Party movement, which was higher than that of both the Democratic and Republican parties. Third, in late January, 2010, a CNN and Opinion Research Corporation poll found that “one-third of Americans have a favorable view of the Tea Party movement” compared to 26% of the people having an unfavorable view and 40% of them being either unsure or unaware of the movement. Finally, a Fox News poll conducted in early February had roughly the same results, with 35% of people favoring the Tea Party movement, 22% against it, and 42% unsure or unaware of it. Clearly, the idea that the Tea Party movement stands for is quite well received, at least among those who know about it.

Perhaps the most ironic thing about all of this is that Republicans have this idea that the Tea Party movement is necessarily a pro-Republican movement. It isn’t. It is an anti-spending movement. Yes, lowering expenses does overlap with what Republicans support and there are certainly a lot of registered Republicans who are part of the movement, but there is a bit of a gap between those correlations and the assumption that you can count on the whole Tea Party to vote for you, which many Republicans and some journalists and commentators seem to be suggesting. Most members of the Tea Party movement are unregistered independent voters with no real loyalty to either party, so you can’t jump to conclusions like that so easily. In fact, some Tea Party members take offense to Republicans who appear to be taking advantage of the movement because they are just as guilty of excessive spending as Democrats are.

There are many factors that will weigh in to determine how members of the Tea Party end up voting in the coming elections, especially the mid-term election in November. How the Democrats respond to calls for fiscal responsibility will be a key part of this, but how the Republicans respond to any Democratic measures that would get spending under control are also important to consider. A few weeks ago, the Senate considered the creation of a bipartisan committee that would figure out how balance our budget and start getting us out of debt, but it was shot down in large part due to the Republicans’ new favorite game of obstructionism. They may think that making the Democrats look like they haven’t achieved anything will be beneficial to them, but killing a legitimate effort to balance the budget will only hurt their image in the eyes of the Tea Party, not help it.

What is clear, then, is that the Tea Party movement is centered on a principle, not a party. Their independent mindset allows them to embrace whoever genuinely tries to reduce government spending and reject those who do not. They have a single core belief and generally appear to be more mundane than the radical band of protesters that some media sources depict them as. They are more popular than many people realize, and the future is arguably in their control. This could be a major turning point for the movement, however. They just recently held their first annual convention, which is probably a sign that they are not going away anytime soon, but a more structured organization with a larger set of official positions and stronger links to existing and future politicians may dilute their purity of purpose and send them off message. They could risk alienating and losing many of their original supporters and eventually ending up as just a small branch of an existing political party or a small third party of its own. Now is the time for the Tea Party to decide if they are going to remain truly independent or become redundant and ineffectual.

The bigoted and the ignorant

A recently released Quinnipiac poll finds that 66% of Americans think the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy is discriminatory, but only 57% support its repeal. So… The people making up that 9% difference think discrimination is perfectly acceptable? I don’t know what is more disturbing, that or the fact that the other 34% of Americans apparently don’t know that treating a select group of people differently based on an inherent characteristic they share is the definition of discrimination. Maybe we need to be providing dictionaries in hotel rooms instead of Bibles.

The sanctity of marriage? What’s that?

Tomorrow in Florida, a man is going to marry a woman he does not know, does not have any romantic interest in, does not plan to have children with, and does not plan to remain loyal to her for a moment let alone until death, all to show how absurd the state’s prohibition of same-sex marriage is. The woman agreed to marry him for this purpose, even though she has a real boyfriend (who is understanding and supportive of the situation). The idea is to show that marriage does not necessarily have any sanctity to protect, and how ridiculous it is that the state’s law allows complete strangers to get married as long as they are of the opposite gender but two people of the same sex who truly love each other cannot.

Yes, these two people are at least a little bit crazy, but so is a law which arbitrarily discriminates against people based on a single aspect of their being. Personally, I fully support this idea. It will make for some great evidence in court, if nothing else.

It doesn’t matter that Judge Walker is gay

The latest twist to the Prop 8 trial: Judge Walker is apparently gay.

Knowing the anti-gay establishment’s history of considering only the half of the debate that suits them, they will probably exploit the judge’s sexual orientation and accuse him of having a pro-gay bias if he rules in favor of gay marriage. But, while it’s true that there is no real way to be absolutely sure any judgment is completely free of bias, one could also make an equally credible argument that a straight judge could exhibit an anti-gay bias in a case of this nature.

The fact that Judge Walker is gay is certainly interesting, but not something that should raise suspicions. Judges are professionals, trained to pay attention only to the evidence presented to them in the courtroom when determining their ruling, and they do this all the time. Judges of all races and ethnicities frequently take on cases involving discrimination, both male and female judges rule on cases involving rape or sexual abuse, and judges who believe in the full range of religions oversee cases relating to religious institutions, so it should be no surprise that both heterosexual and homosexual judges take on cases involving gay rights issues. Who a judge is has nothing to do with their ability to interpret the law justly.

Some facts about US military presence around the world

As of the latest figures, the number of active US troops in countries that we are not at war with is greater than the number of troops we have in countries that we are at war with. Think about that for a second.

As of September 30, 2009 (the most recent figures available at this time), the United States has about 251,000 troops deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan or some other current operation, but there are about 263,000 American troops who are not engaged in any of our current wartime operations but who are nonetheless stationed in nearly 150 other countries around the world. Among these, there are over 50,000 American troops stationed in Germany, over 30,000 troops in Japan, nearly 25,000 in South Korea, and nearly 10,000 in the United Kingdom and Italy each. There are five more countries that have over 1,000 American troops in them, and 138 countries that have fewer than 1,000. On top of all that, there is a further 20,000 troops who are afloat on ships at various places around the world. And remember, none of these troops are fighting in any wars. They’re just there.

It is true that September 30th was four months ago now and the specific numbers may have changed slightly since then, but they appear to stay relatively steady over the years judging by past reports. The only major change, if it has even taken place yet, was the president’s announcement that we are going to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. That addition will increase our number of operational troops, but they are more than likely going to be deployed from the 1.1 million active troops on American soil or floating in American waters, so the number of non-operational troops simply stationed around the world will probably not decrease. So the initial statement made above may not be entirely true anymore, but even when all of those extra 30,000 troops are deployed to Afghanistan, we will still have a number of troops stationed around the world that equates to roughly 90% of the number of combat troops we have. That’s still pretty unnecessary, wasteful, etc. But then consider the fact that we are also now withdrawing combat troops from Iraq, so we very well may continue to have more troops in countries we are at peace with than those in countries we are at war with. (see note 1 below)

Either way, having so many active troops stationed all around the world essentially doing nothing (see note 2 below) is incredibly expensive. The annual salaries alone of those 263,000 troops cost American taxpayers almost 14 billion dollars every year at the average military salary of $52,000. Nevermind the cost of training them, housing and feeding them, purchasing and maintaining all their equipment and the bases they stay at, and so on. Thankfully, these are troops stationed in countries that we are not at war with so there shouldn’t be any cost in lives (except in accidents like the American helicopter crash that happened a few days ago in Germany), but the monetary cost is absolutely enormous. This, along with various other things, is the kind of unnecessary expense that bloats our military budget out of proportion.

The United States military budget accounts for over 40% of total global military spending, even though our country’s population makes up only 4.5% of the world population. Over 4% of our GDP is spent on the military, twice the global average of 2%. In dollars, the United States military budget is more than 7 times higher than the next most heavily funded country’s military, which is China’s, but our population is less than a quarter of theirs. Do the math and you’ll discover the US spends about 31 times more money on our military per citizen in the country than China does. Per number of active troops, the US spends about 15 times more than China does.

So what have we learned? The United States has troops placed literally all around the world for no necessary reason, and we spend excessive and unreasonable amounts of money on them. Take a look at what we are doing and you will see that our enemies have every right, and good reason, to accuse us of military imperialism. We must reduce our military budget significantly and we must withdraw our troops from every country we don’t have a good reason for being in. We have got to stop being so provocative.

Notes:

1. It should be said that in a case like Afghanistan, the proper wording is that we are at war in the country, not at war with the country. We are fighting specific people inside the country, not the country as a whole. Afghanistan in general is not our enemy.

2. I full realize that the troops we have in countries we are at peace with are not doing “nothing” as I said, but our presence in most countries is simply unnecessary. Most of the “preserving the peace” arguments are a bunch of bullshit. One cannot make a reasonable argument that rich European countries or Japan (the places we have most of our non-operational troops stationed) can’t afford to protect themselves. They all have militaries of their own. Yes, we do have treaties to help protect certain countries if they should come under attack (like Japan), but having American troops permanently stationed there is just not necessary. Maybe we need to reconsider some of these agreements.

John McCain tries to deter Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Senate hearing

The Senate Armed Services Committee met today with Robert Gates (the Secretary of Defense) and Michael Mullen (chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) to discuss how Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell could be repealed in a way that would least impact the military. During the debate, John McCain insisted that Gates and Mullen were “clearly biased” for even thinking about how to do this before they had addressed the issue of whether it should be done at all.

Clearly, McCain has forgotten that it’s not up to them to decide. Their job is simply to follow orders from their boss, the president (aka the commander in chief), who has said this policy should be repealed. Congress obviously has to vote on the issue to put the repeal into effect, but the president is starting to take action on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, so the leaders of the military (who answer to him) need to be figuring out how they’re going to implement the change whether they like it or not.

Think, John! You’ve been in the military. You should know how this kind of thing works. As a matter of fact, you probably do. You’re probably just trying to influence Gates and Mullen to have and express an opinion with the hope of undermining the repeal effort and making a political win. Yes, I know how this works, too. But you will be defeated, Mr. McCain.