Tag: philosophy

How I’m Voting: California Propositions

There are nine propositions on the ballot in California this fall ranging from such issues as legalized marijuana and climate change.  If you’re not a Californian, or simply one that doesn’t pay any attention to politics here’s the skinny:  California is one of 16 states that allows voters to put measures on the ballot that if approved by a majority of voters go directly into law.  It is one of the few forms of direct democracy available here in the United States, and like all things it has both positives and negatives.  That is a conversation for another day.  This post is how I will be voting on the proposition this November 2, if you wish, you can take it as my recommendations if you wish or you can ignore it, you can even leave nasty (or positive, I’d prefer positive) comments below.

Proposition 19 – Legalizes marijuana under California but not Federal law.  Permits local governments to regulate and tax commerical production, distribution, and sale of marijuana – YES. I’ve long thought that the ‘war on drugs’ has done little to reduce drug use in this country and has instead rapidly militarized law enforcement.  Eliminating prohibition will eliminate the stigma from these drugs as well as allowing for proper oversight and regulation.  Funds that have been spent to imprison non-violent drug offenders can instead be used on rehabilitation of addicts.

Proposition 20 – Redistricting of Congressional Districts – NO. I’m not a fan of gerrymandering myself, but I don’t see how giving the power to draw districts to a committee that has no responsibility to the people will help.  Voters can, and do, punish their elected representation when they do things they don’t agree with.  The redistricting commission is not accountable to the public.  I’m not adverse to coming up with new ways to draw districts, I’d even support a commission if its members were electable officials, I don’t think this is the right answer.

Proposition 21 – Establishes $18 annual vehicle license surcharge to help fund state parks and wildlife programs.  Grants surcharged vehicles free admission to all state parks – YES. California has 278 state parks many of which are in desperate need of funding for maintenence and rehabilitation/conservation projects.  The recent fiscal difficulties has reduced already minimal funding of these parks.  California’s wildlife and parks are a state treasure and all Californians should help in paying for their upkeep.  This proposition eliminates entry/use fees for visiting State parks and allows all Californians who register their vehicles here to use while at the same time upkeeping them.

Proposition 22 – Prohibits the state from borrowing or taking funds used for transportation, redevelopment, or local government projects and services – No. One of the reasons it is so difficult for state legislators to forge a budget is because of how little control the legislature has over how moneys are spent.  Through the iniative system   the electorate has increasingly limited the ability of legislators to craft a budget without resorting to such gimmicks as “raiding” transportation or local government project funds.  California’s structural organization does need serious reform, especially unhitching municipal, city, and county funding from state funding.  Prop. 22 isn’t the answer though.  If this measure passes funding that would normally support education and health services will instead be used to balance the budget.

Proposition 23 – Suspends implementation of air pollution control law (AB 32) requiring major sources of emissions to report and reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, until unemployment drops to 5.5% or less for a full year – No. If you believe thay global climate change is a conspiracy or a lie than nothing I say here is going to change you.  The most I can do is recommend that you begin studying the literature on the subject (primary sources please) and decide for yourself.  There are lots of arguments back and forth, I’m not going to get into them there.  All I’m going to say is that someone has to start somewhere and historically that someone has been California…

Proposition 24 – Repeals recent legislation that would allow businesses to lower their tax liability – YES. Closes tax loopholes and maintains some level of balance in how taxes are paid in state.

Proposition 25 – Changes legislative vote requirements to pass budget and budget-related legislation from two-thirds to a simple majority.  Retains two-thirds vote requirement for taxes – YES. Will make the party with the majority in the two legislative houses truly responsible for the budgets the make and will end endless obstructionism by the minority party.  It will also force the minority party to actually create some form of platform that will win votes with the Californian people instead of holding the entire state hostage every year.

Proposition 26 – Requires that certain state and local fees be approved by two-thirs vote.  Fees include those that address adverse impacts on society or the environment cause by the fee-payer’s business – NO. Why would I want to create more gridlock in Sacramento?  Why would I give corporations a free pass to offload the costs of environmental destruction onto the citizens of California?  These fees pay for the damage these businesses do.  These aren’t hidden taxes this is paying for the costs of the damages created through business.

Proposition 27 – Eliminates state commisiion on redistrictin.  Consolidates authority for redistricting with elected representatives – YES. For the same reasons I’m voting NO on Prop. 20.

Re-reading Camus: the Myth of Sisyphus Pt 3

No one gets up in the morning and continues living because they believe there is a God, they get up because they’re compelled to keep living by billions of years of evolution. They get up because life is, in general, pretty fucking amazing. They get up because they have a work they love doing, they have family and friends that care about them and that they care about.

Find the first two parts here and here.

Franz von Stuck's Sisyphus
Franz von Stuck's Sisyphus

I left you last at the beginning of Camus’ critique of other philosopher’s thoughts and rationalizations for suicide.  Camus doesn’t deal with every philosophy, ever -ism, he takes up the only existential philosopher’s and only those who have directly dealt with the issue of suicide.  This list includes: Chestov ( I haven’t read), Kierkegaard (I have), Jaspers (haven’t), and Husserl (have).  Camus states in the very beginning that each and every one of them fails, they abandon reason and escape the problem of suicide by a leap of faith, “a forced hope.” Jaspers’ is the most forthright of the philosophers in this regard.  After enumerating in how many ways Man fails to connect to the world around him, turns that failure is transcendence?!  Unable to find purpose or meaning Jasper inverts it all and says that this is meaning, “That existence which, through a blind act of human confidence, explains everything, he defines as ‘the unthinkable unity of the general and the particular.’ Thus the absurd becomes god, and the inability to understand becomes the existence that illuminates everything.”  How convenient for Jasper that when his reasoning got him in a tough spot, when it appeared he  might have to say that the only logical thing to do in an absurd world is to kill yourself, he declares that the complete absence from reality of meaning or purpose is a direct sign that there is!

Chestov simply states that when we reach the absurd we have found God, that “we must rely upon him even if he does not correspond to any of our rational categories.”  Faced with the absurd we must take the leap of faith and trust to God.  Chestov rejects reason and hopes that there is something beyond it.   Camus is quick to point out that reason and this world are all Humanity has to work with and that by making the absurd God and removing them from this world into a world beyond, they’ve both lost all meaning to mankind.  Logic and reason, which if you remember were all Camus was going to use when he began his inquiry into suicide, is not these philosopher’s strong point as Camus repeatedly points out.  They’ve abandoned it when they make the hopeful leap of faith, Kierkegaard does the same as Chestov if not more so turning the Christian God of his youth into a monster of a deity that requires a sacrifice of the intellect to satisfy it.

Camus rejects all of this, he wants to know if he can live with what he knows and with that alone.  Camus dismisses the failed attempts of his predecessors with these words:

If in order to elude the anxious question: “what would life be?” one must, like the donkey, feed on the roses of illusion, then the absurd mind, rather than resigning itself to falsehood, prefers to adopt fearlessly Kierkegaard’s reply: “despair.”  everything considered, a determined soul will always manage.

So what do I think about all this?  I find that without me knowing it that my thoughts on life have been heavily influenced by Camus.  The first time I read this I know there were parts that I didn’t understand and simply continued reading in the hopes of finding some clarity…  I do not recall finding it, but rereading the essay it is clear I did.  I haven’t sat down and mapped out my logic or reasoning, but I don’t need any other reason to live than that I have a life.  In a conversation with a Mormon Bishop I was asked, “Without God why do you even bother getting up in the morning?”  I honestly do not understand this question.  I suspect that those who ask it don’t either.  No one gets up in the morning and continues living because they believe there is a God, they get up because they’re compelled to keep living by billions of years of evolution.  They get up because life is, in general, pretty fucking amazing.  They get up because they have a work they love doing, they have family and friends that care about them and that they care about.  I told him this and he seemed taken aback, and then asked “What about when you die?”  I laughed out loud at that point, though I quickly apologized.  I don’t remember my life before I came in to it and I don’t think I’ll remember it afterwards.  Is your life, right now, only worth continuing if a eternity of existence is promised after you die?  I doubt it.  Living is its own reward… Camus’ thoughts are quite a bit more stylized than that, demanding that Man live life constantly rebellion against the fact that the world is absurd and that life must end…

I’ll be discussing and commenting on that in the next edition, which covers Camus’ “absurd freedom” and then moving on to the “absurd man”

Revisiting Same Sex Marriage

the essential civil right is not the right to be different — because difference, in this context, is the prerequisite assumption of bigotry — but the right to be the same.

With the recent legal activities in Iowa and Vermont, the Same Sex Marriage issue isn’t going away, as some proponents of Prop. 8 hoped it would after the proposition passed.  I stated then that people don’t stop fighting for basic rights regardless of how many times those rights are denied them. 

Now, this issue will be taken up and debated at the Federal level by the Congress.  Not because there is any politician brave enough to address the issue, but they’ll be forced to by the District of Columbia City Council who have proposed to recognize the same sex marriages performed elsewhere.  I’ve been thinking about the arguments against Same Sex Marriage as well and I agree with Peter Sagal, who lumped them into 3 groups:  It is against God’s law, it is against tradition, and it’ll destroy heterosexual monogamous marriages. 

I’ve covered these arguments in the past but thought that I’d do so again, if perhaps you missed it or didn’t understand.  The first one isn’t an argument at all, and is irrelevant.  What if my God told me it was okay?  What if he told me to kill kittens, and build giant obelisks to his glory?  It doesn’t matter. My and your personal religious beliefs aren’t an argument for denying people their rights in a secular nation that doesn’t recognize any religious belief as valid.  That whole ‘wall’ Jefferson talked about. 

Arguing marriages traditional place is also a poor argument, the whole liberal enlightenment movement of which the United States is probably the best product of is based on overcoming narrow-minded traditional beliefs, laws, processes, etc.  Slavery has a long tradition in the world, Misogyny does too, as well as genocide, torture, pedophilia, polygamy, etc.  The list could go on and on, these are all traditions that we’ve overcome and are better off for it!  I won’t mention the fact that what is presented to Americans as traditional marriage is younger than our country, but that can be for another time. 

The final argument that same sex marriage will destroy heterosexual ones is ridiculous on its face.  What is the divorce race in our Nation?  50%  How many more heterosexual marriages are loveless or festering wells of spousal and children abuse?  According to the Center for Health and Gender Equality 22% of women interviewed admit to domestic violence abuse.  This actual incidence of domestic violence is almost always under reported.  In some surveys the number has been as high as 50-70%!    It appears that heterosexual marriage doesn’t need any help being destroyed, heterosexuals are doing a bang up job all on their own.  All of this and I haven’t even begun to question how what two people do in the privacy of their own home effects what you do in the privacy of yours?  You might not like it, but besides not being comfortable with the idea of two men or two women raising children and having sexual intercourse it can’t do anything to your marriage.  What is much more likely to destroy it is money issues or infidelity.  Besides there’s no evidence to support this, the divorce rate in Massachusetts hasn’t spiked since the same sex marriage became legal, for the few weeks that it was legal in California the only statistics to see a spike was the rate of marriage…   They used this argument too when it came to giving Woman the vote, passing Civil Rights legislation, and abolition…  Nothing was destroyed then either…

Finally, those opposing same sex marriage will fail for one reason, the young don’t care.  It might take more years than it should, but it is inevitable.  Look at some exit polling from last year’s election concerning Proposition 8 in California:

           Yes   No

18-29 (20%)  39   61
30-44 (28%)  55   45
45-64 (36%)  54   46
65+   (15%)  61   39

As older voters die off and younger voters replace them and the LGBT movement continues to press for equal rights, laws protecting “marriage” will fall and the LGBT community will be able to enjoy the same rights heterosexuals take for granted.  As Andrew Sullivan stated, the essential civil right is not the right to be different — because difference, in this context, is the prerequisite assumption of bigotry — but the right to be the same.

Still Alive…

What things in your own life have you found yourself taking the easy route by collecting stuff instead of time and energy? For me it’s been writing and illustration. I’ve collected piles of stuff that should be used to better my craft but have still yet to put the effort into it.

What happened?!  My last post was months ago and since then the world has become a different place entirely.   New President, new Economy, new Job,  new Year.  Let’s take those in order:  I’m hopeful, but not too much.  I’m grateful I have a job and thinking about what positive experiences I can have in a down economy.  I’m excited about it and looking forward to working hard.  New year’s are much like the ones before them, except I’m older.

I’m back at the Capitol working in the Speaker’s Office as a legislative consultant for the Democratic Caucus.  I’m also been appointed to a city commission here in Davis.  The Historical Resources Commission reviews the historical assets of the city and reviews petitions to change and alter them before they go to the city council.  This is the first time I’ve actively pursued civic duty and it’ll be interesting to see how the city’s commissions work and interact with the city council and community.

As I have the time I’ll be making some changes to the site, updating the various sections in an attempt to give the site a more centralized theme and purpose.  Since my interests are so eclectic, you can still expect to see peculiar posts here at times.  Don’t get your expectations up, this is going to happen slowly.  I’m pretty busy with work and living my life.  Anyway on to the actual reason for this post:  Dilettantism!

I’ve commented multiple times over on Gamestooge about music rhythm games, Wii Music, Guitar Hero, and Rock Band, and how they don’t help people learn how to play or appreciate music more.  If anything introducing these games to children and young adults will distract them from learning the skills necessary to play music and/or turn them off to the difficulty inherent in the task as the games will difficult are easy enough to master and memorize while learning piano, guitar, drums, any instrument really is a difficult endeavor.  I’ve been having trouble putting these thoughts into words but I’ve found a great article by Rob Horning about the very same topic that is worth the read.  The problem as he sees it and the one that I completely missed is that in our consumerist world is that we’ve largely replaced mastering of a topic or area with collecting stuff regarding it!  We’ve replaced personal accomplishment with personal collections.  Instead of learning the ins and outs of music, we just collect music.  Instead of absorbing and mastering philosophy, or history, or calligraphy, or anything, we buy things that are about them and then point to these collections of stuff as a sign of our mastery/expertise without ever having to invest the time and energy that is necessary to actually master them.

Just a thought.  What do you think?  Are these just games?  Or indicators of a decline in our culture’s ability to commit?  What things in your own life have you found yourself taking the easy route by collecting stuff instead of time and energy?  For me it’s been writing and illustration.  I’ve collected piles of stuff that should be used to better my craft but have still yet to put the effort into it.

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