My political ramblings

As I get older, I find my political views are changing.  This is not necessarily a positive for either of the presumed presidential candidates, though. 

Living in India, I have found people (or at least those represented by the newspaper's views) to be childish.  Actually, that is probably too strong a word - Childlike is probably better.

They expect the government to protect them from - well, pretty much everything.  Famine, war pestilence?  Check.  Adult themes on television, as evidenced by banning "The Dirty Picture", a critically acclaimed movie, which was denied a showing even after ALL the edits suggested by the sensors?  Check. 

I wonder what is next.  Do Indians (or anyone) have the right not to be offended?  I certainly hope not - Part of Freedom is the ability to offend people. Yes, it is tempered - I don't have the right to scream "Fire" in a crowded movie theater.  But don't I have rights to express myself?  Why should anyone have the right to oppress my expression?

In the US, there are a few things that would define me as "liberal".  (Very few things.)  Gay marriage, for example.  It's not that I support it, or oppose it.  I just don't care.  If two people want to get married, and spend money for a wedding, why should I care whether they are both male, or female, or white, black, Asian, Hispanic, or, to be honest, human?  There are some people who will argue that soon people will be marrying dogs and cats.  Again - who cares?  No tax breaks for marrying a non-human, and everything seems fine to me.  Of course, since the animal can't sign divorce papers, good luck changing your mind later...

Drug laws - they aren't working.  I don't know what they should be, but looking at what we have, there is a pretty good example of "What not to do".  I am for the decriminalization of certain drugs, and believe that they should be treated like cigarettes and alcohol - regulate and tax the snot out of them.  Another Liberal check for my political viewpoint.



I am strongly in favor of Capitol Punishment.  Murderers can escape (like the Texas bunch did), and they can kill again.  Capital Punishment guarantees that they don't murder again.  A check for the Conservative column.  And I am against Abortion.  Check two in the Conservative column.  (BTW, I find it a little hard to understand any person who thinks killing murderers is bad, but killing unborn babies is ok.) 

Where I am very conservative is finances.  While my personal finances don't always reflect appropriate decisions, I expect my government to be frugal and cautious with MY money, and everybody elses money, also.  I don't expect Government to take care of everything.  I believe Ford (not Jefferson, as is often mis-attributed) was right - "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have."

What I want MOST from my government is to be left alone.  The less involved with my life the government is, the happier I am.  Jefferson did say "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground."  (Thomas Jefferson knew small government was best.  He also hated debt and banks, so two more pluses for TJ.)  Big government - Like our current president embraces - scares the bejesus out of me.

I find more and more I view myself as "Libertarian".  I want the government to stay out of my hair (so to speak) and out of my love life/financial life/childrearing decisions/everything else.  I am also enough of a realist to recognise that a Libertarian candidate will NEVER succeed at the national level.  (OK, Never may be too strong - how about "not in the next few years".)  So - I vote with the candidate that most agrees with me between the big two. 

You can find out who most agrees with you.  Check out http://www.selectsmart.com/president/.

Mors Omnibus Communis

The Latin makes the post sound interesting.  I'll save you the trouble of using Google - It means "Death comes to all men" (or, "all things").

I have been sick the last three days, with a fever and muscle aches.  This is the second time in a month, which is not normal for me.  Coupled with the sickness, though, is a form of - not depression, exactly, but a constant focus on my own demise.  I am sure many people go through this, a kind of grieving process for your own mortality.  (I know - I Googled it, and "Accepting own mortality" has 12 million hits.)

Perhaps it is this phase in life - the acceptance that one's life is finite, not the knowledge of it, but the full total acceptance - that leads to "mid-life crisis".  After all, why think about death when you can buy a sports car, ditch the wife for a silicon-implanted 20-something, and pretend you have a new lease on life? 

Maybe I could go the other direction, and become an old man before my time.  Take up dominoes, play checkers in the front lawn with an old coon hound, watch Lawrence Welk, and complain about all the "Noise" the radio stations are playing.

Nah, that doesn't sound like me either. 

Shakespeare wrote "Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once."  I always believed that it was the running away that caused the "coward" to "die" a thousand times, but now I wonder if it isn't the worry, anxiety, and fear that the Bard was referring to.  If so, I am a coward.  I have tasted death hundreds of times, in my worry and fear.

I am a Christian.  I believe there is an afterlife.  I believe in the resurrection of all men.  "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgement."  I don't fear death, but dying scares the crap out of me.

I wonder why it bothers me so much.  I am a reasonably logical fellow.  I accept that everything that lives will die.  There just seems like there should be an exception for ME.  That seems selfish.  Ok, an exception for you, too.

Maybe it is because this is one of the areas where I have NO control whatsoever.  I didn't get a vote.  I was never asked my opinion.  I can't opt out of it.  I can't choose to pay a tax rather than go along with it.  (Yes, that was a dig at Obamacare)   (Side Note - I find it funny that spell check suggests replacing Obamacare with Macabre.) 

I assume this, like other overwhelming situations, needs to be handled using "Elephant Mastication".  (How do you eat an Elephant?  One bite at a time.)  Some things make it easier to take a bite.  This blog, for example, helps.  A warm bed with a soft body makes the nights feel less dark and scary.  Even knowing that all mortals before me faced the same inner turmoil makes gives me hope that I also may come to fully accept it.

Dylan Thomas wrote a famous poem, urging his father to fight death, to not give in.  It starts: 
"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."


I feel he was wrong.  When it is time, I pray that I will face my death with dignity, that I will be able to comfort my family with my acceptance. 

I know my life will end.  I just pray it is not too soon.