A 2012 scene and political ideology
I was watching 2012 with a friend. We were discussing a point in the movie in which many people were loaded onto several large boats (very similar to Noah's Ark) in effort to withstand a coming global flood. One of the characters was trying to rally other boats to open up their gates and allow the many desperate people outside to board. One of the American characters refused. He was worried about not having enough resources and being over capacity.
My friend said "Russia would never agree to open up the gates." For some reason, my reply was out of haste, but got me thinking even more. "Would China?", I prodded. He said in a matter of fact manner, "No". At this point, I felt as though I was wildly misunderstanding socialism and communism. My understanding is that those views are less individual oriented and more group oriented. For instance, they would dislike how 1% of Americans control the majority of wealth in our country. They would rather that the wealth was distributed equally among the population at large.
With this in mind, I feel like both Russia and China would be more likely to open the gates than the Americans. This only considers the basics of socialism, communism and capitalism, without taking into consideration how those nations employ the principles of each, respectively. For instance, America is supposedly “by the people, for the people” but there is some debate as to how accurate that statement is when applied to the historical actions of the American government.
Perhaps I'm simplifying this far too much because there are many degrees of socialism/communism/capitalism/etc. However, with less people on the ship, the Americans would feel as though they'd be more likely to survive individually. I think the Russian/Chinese view would be with more people on board, there may be more casualties, but the group as a whole would have a better chance of surviving. Another difference that I see is that the Russians may want to select certain people from the outsiders to board the ship based on their ability to contribute to society as a whole; whereas the Chinese would be less selective.
Thoughts?
Piracy laws and US prison population
American prisons house ¼ of the worlds incarcerated population but our country has 5% of the worlds population. This seems a bit skewed. About 1 in 100 of American's citizens are behind bars. These facts tell me that our laws need to be revamped. Or, since that would impact existing functionality, our lawmakers should be increasingly careful about what new laws are introduced. This added care would likely lead to a lowered amount of incarcerations. American taxpayers foot the bill for the $60 billion annual incarceration cost. That's about $88/day per prisoner. Instead of paying to put and keep people in jail, we should pay to put everything through college or some other secondary education. With the greater amount of educated citizens, we'd likely see a significant decrease in crimes committed by our citizens. Perhaps if we put $32,120 pear year ($88 x 365) towards the college education of each of the 2.2 million American citizens in jail, we'd have a significantly greater chance to have a stronger, less criminal-centric society. To clarify who I mean by the 2.2 million people, I'm not talking about those individuals that are already in jail, but those that are upcoming youths who are at risk for future incarceration before the crimes have the chance to occur.
Instead of creating laws like FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) or ACTA (Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement), to name a selective few, we should be worrying about our growing prison populations while analyzing our laws and the need for new laws that are equally or more harsh than the ones already in place.
ACTA will essentially encourage ISPs to monitor the online activities of their customers, and report any and all activity that may infringe copyright law. Basically, the act will criminalize the downloading of unauthorized content (pirate material). Someone simply downloading videos or music should not be qualified to go to jail. After all, those downloads do little to impact the box office and DVD sales. A teenager is not a criminal for downloading movies he wouldn't otherwise buy because it's from an unfamiliar genre, for example. As a matter of fact, piracy exposes pirates to more movies than those that don't pirate material. It actually leads to more sales, in the long run, for movies and music that are pirated, especially if the content entertains the masses. Movie piracy causes a loss of $20.3 billion/year. It causes the loss of 140k jobs and will cause a loss of tax revenue of about $800 million. On the other hand: "... let's say people are forgoing paying for $6 billion in movies by downloading or consuming illegal goods but end up spending that $6 billion on iPods, computers and HDTV sets on which to watch the movies, which leads to $25 billion in job creation in the computer/software/consumer electronics field," Jason Shultz, staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, wrote in an e-mail. Essentially, piracy of intellectual property actually fuels our American economy just like the illegal drug trade does (which is, not to mention, supplemented by the government). I think it's safe to say without crime, the American economy would essentially collapse or somehow be crippled. I'm definitely not advocating any violent crimes. However, if there's a movie you want to sample before you go buy it on Blu-ray, you shouldn't have to worry about ending up in jail. Downloading intellectual property doesn't physically hurt anyone and we shouldn't try to enact laws that criminalize our citizens for yet another small government misunderstanding the needs of the marketplace.
Citations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisons_in_the_United_States
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/28/AR2006092801640.html
Voting in the PA primary
Today I cast my vote in the PA primary. I've noticed quite a few important and disappointing things.
I noticed that not that many people vote and of those who I saw voting, a high percentage of them were elderly. I took pride in my elderly peers. They were showing up to the polls in wheelchairs and walkers, taking a few minutes out of their day to show support for what America is supposedly made up of, democracy (derived from the Greek meaning for 'rule by the people'). However, the most sad thing I noticed was that there were no young people at the polls. It makes me sad because young people who don't vote are showing disrespect for the elderly who are less able to get out to vote but do as well as for our country as a whole.
I suppose most people in this country don't even graze the surface of understanding the complex political system that we've been 'graced' with, let alone what implications voting has on their daily lives. If they did, they'd vote. Most would rather remain ignorant to the reality of things, rather than unearth the truth, understand it, and act accordingly to it... sad, but true.
Former President Clinton visited Pottstown High School
I've had the privilege to attend Former President Bill Clinton's visit to Pottstown High School today. The whole speech was very motivating and inspiring. However, in my opinion, it sounded like he was running for President, rather than his wife. He highlighted many points of his own term's in office as if they would matter in Hillary's Presidency.
I've been thinking a great deal about one particularly thing that he mentioned. Of course, it's a personal thing, rather than a big picture thing that most people probably took from this presentation. He said, and I'm paraphrasing, that you have to remember that you're not a special person as President. He said that everyone does all they can to prop you up, eg. they played music everyday when you walk into the room. He said that you have to remember that you're just a person representing the American people.
My interpretation was that as a leader, you're not any better than anyone else or in any way special. Anyone else could do your job if they were placed in it. I just have to keep reminding myself that. Sometimes, and this happens to everyone, you get too confident and begin to think you have something very special to offer. Myself, I think that I have all these special qualities but I have to remember (when you really think about it) those qualities don't make me, as a person, any better or more special than the person next to me.
I've realized that instead of looking at myself as a special person, I should just remember that HOW I do things is different and that's may or may not be the advantage. Nothing about myself is special or better in anyway... anyone else could do what I do easily. However, they couldn't necessarily do it HOW I do it. It's the way that people do things that may be different between individuals, and that specific difference doesn't make the person any more or less special than the others.
Here's the best pic I got from the gathering... poor quality since it was taken on a cell phone.
Post college life
I didn't realize when I was in college that I'd wish I was back in college. Why is it that, as people, we wish we weren't in the situation we are in? When I was in high school, I wished I was in college. When I was in college, I wished I was in the 'real world'. Now that I'm in the real world, I wish I was back in college. It's not difficult to see how f-ed the real world is... everyone is a hypocrite. Tell it like it is and everyone panics. Everyone is always very quick to criticize. However, reverse the situation on them and it's totally unacceptable. I was raised under the golden rule and I, believe it or not, actually follow it. I believe that if more people did, we'd be a better society. We wouldn't need a government that speaks for us... we'd see negative things happening to us and fight for what's right (e.g.). Instead, it is recommended to us through societal norms to join the herd and allow the government do the speaking. We'll likely not see another civil rights movement for another few hundred years. There doesn't seem to be that many willing participants to challenge the status quo. Everyone would rather sit on their couches and watch TV. They'd rather sit at the computer glued to porn or sports. They'd rather not keep up to date on current events and do a little research when they don't know something. When someone tries to clue them in on this, they act as though that person has fell off his/her rocker, so to speak. However, I believe that I'm a bit different. i suggest that we try to change the way things are (although I'm not any better than anyone else, I suppose, since I don't have a plan of attack). I believe that if we all just try to change the way we think, we'll see a progressive turn for our future.
Specificity
I always try to be as specific as I can with people. That way they have all the information they need to conduct their business. However, the other day at work, someone specifically told me not to be specific. That way, "they won't be able to hold you to it..." In the same day, another person criticized me for not being specific enough in my emails.... That I need to summarize a long email thread before sending it along. I don't like that idea since it involves me interpreting the content of the emails. I'd rather include a small note of what I need and let the person read all the emails, if need be, so that they can get all the information as well as what decisions were made as a result of particular emails. I don't make many decisions without purpose, so my level of specificity is pretty high, in my opinion of course. I feel like I'd rather tell the truth rather than shield it from someone so that I can't be held responsible for something... Specifics, we all need them!
