Just The Facts and Figures

Does anyone else think that the next 2 1/2 years will get any better? Here's some fun facts and figures. See what you think and be a decider.

http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/728

Post this at school, church, work, cafe - wherever you think there are people that don't vote because they think it doesn't matter or are just too apathetic or beaten down to care anymore.

We need change.

Life, Liberty, The Pursuit of Happiness

Seems like such a simple concept, until you start getting government involved in what it all means.

I'm a strong believer in getting government and the courts out of this business altogether and letting people determine for themselves what constitutes life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It's curious to me that so many people want this stuff legislated or controlled by the government and the courts in the first place, but then with the battle over the theocratization of the world raging globally, I guess it's not a big surprise when the moralists are carrying the day.

Rather than trying to impose controls on people's behavior (ie - abortion, flag burning, marriage), shouldn't government be about defending the country (ie - port security, nuclear diplomacy, international relations), building a stable infrastructure for the good of all citizens, making sure our environment and lands are protected, secured and kept clean, creating an energy policy that frees the country from dealing with autocratic states and creates innovation and jobs?

I'm all for life. In fact, give me life over a death penalty any day and at least be consistent in your views of what constitutes pro-life before starting to moralize over how I or anyone else lives theirs.

I'm all for liberty. I believe in the freedom of religion and I applaud those that have a belief system that they can use to guide them. But, believe on your own and don't impose your belief system of me. You can be free to believe in what you want. Let me have my freedom to do likewise without legislating your morality for everyone. There's a good reason why the founders chose to keep state and church separate.

I'm all for the pursuit of happiness. If it makes me happy to marry another man (though that's not my particular inclination), then how does that threaten your happiness?

I think we pursue laws like the civil rights act or the voting rights act because they increase our overall ability to have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for everyone.

I think laws or amendments that seek to restrict groups of people from pursuing their particular view of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are mean-spirited and anti-democratic and the only way we will get to a point of having government serve us is by voting for that change and having a legislative and executive body that understands the difference between what government should do to serve the citizenry and what should be left to the citizenry to decide for themselves on how to live moral lives, who to love and how to create community for themselves without impacting the broader good.

Independence. Day.

Ok, Ok, I have been neglecting this post for way too long while being busy with other things, but things are heating up around the world, figuratively and literally and it's time to get back to it.

Are our freedoms and independence being eroded daily under BushCo? Feels like it. Here's a great column by Jon Carroll of the SF Chronicle http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/07/04/DDGOBIQ33P1.DTL, which kind of says how I feel about it.

Why does it always have to come down to a question of security versus freedom? Is it not possible to have both? Why can't I criticize the government while still loving the country? Isn't that what makes us all really independent and really different from places where freedom is just a slogan?

Anyway, had a great 4th - seeing Stephen and Tanya and Anastasia, going to the ubiquitous barbeque, catching a few fireworks and eating too much.

In the end, it all contributes to the heating up I guess, but that's another story altogether. Go see "An Inconvenient Truth" and decide for yourself how to live with consciousness.