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This is all spawning from a shirt that i have. One of my friends always used to question me whenever i wore my Against All Authority t-shirt, and the other day we actually talked about what it is that i mean when i say this. mostly, when i say authority, i mean the general ideas that are used to build a specific entity. for instance, i would call myself a border-line socialist.anarchist. i believe in the ideals put forth by these two groups, but i have trouble believing that any large scale implementation of either would work. i do not believe the american form af government is in any way shape or form anything close to this, and i also believe that it is not as good a form of government that many of us would like to think. In many cases i would say that the best type of government would be a democracy--which the US is not--with many of the same practices as socialism. for instance, basic human rights such as health care, a good education, and decent shelter for people are necessary items in a nation if it were to function properly. the US has none of these. you can get an education, but if you are poor and cannot afford to go to a private school, or a public school in a rich neighborhood, then there is no possibility of receiving an education that will allow you to further yourself in the economic system. i mentioned earlier that the US is not a democracy. Many people will argue with me, but the fact of the matter is that we live in a republic, a republic that is slowly becoming more and more authoritarianistic. depending on when i can get to sleep, i may go into this now, and then again i may come back to it at a later point in time. well i cant sleep still, so ill do my best for 440 in the morning. first example, this whole "election" that occured. less people voted for bush, and he still got in. who approves the bills and things that go through congress, well one of them is something like 95 years old, they are all rich, and the majority are white. logically, human nature has a tendency to make one look after oneself first, so wouldnt these people be doing what is in their best interest. meaning, wouldnt they keep on doing what is it that the big corporations want them to do. this keeps money in the congressmens' pockets, so i dont see why they wouldnt. well i can see, if any of them were at all like me they wouldnt, but then again if any of them were anything like me they probably would not have gotten into office any way because they wouldnt have enough money to finance a really expensive campaign. there is a difference between a democracy and a republic. not a large one, but there is one. a republic consists of many people that are voted into office--senators, congressmen/women, the president--by the people to make decisions for the people and to represent them when making new laws and in dealing with both national and international issues. In a democracy, the people still vote, but they are more important than in a republic. There are no middlemen between the people and those in power. the people vote for the laws, the people vote for what they want to do as a nation, and what they want to happen in their own communities. there are still such positions as a president, and the higher ranking officials, but their actions are more closely linked to what the people want. at this point in time, this is not the case. however, this is something that we should strive for.
another form of authority that i am against would be any sort of military establishment. there are problems in this world, and too many times these problems are concluded not by peaceful means in which both sides of the conflict could come to an agreement, but the conflict is ended through some sort of warfare. however, it is not always called war. In Kosovo, there were strategic air strikes; in Iraq, there are laser guided slabs of concrete being dropped so as to not hurt innocent bystanders. In discussing the conclusion of any type of warfare, no matter what it's called, I am very careful to refrain from using the word solved. i do not believe that a conflict that is ended through violent means can ever be solved. there will always be a winner and a loser. the winner will write the history books, and the loser will get the short end of the stick. this will cause the loser to become bitter and in some cases this will cause a resurgence of the war. World War II is a great instance of this. it happened because a single nation was not able to carry the burden the was placed on it. germany was not able to deal with the problems that were forced upon it after it had lost WWI. this made the people suseptible to accepting a leader, such as hitler, who was filled with hatred towards many races, and saw the only way to quench his hatred was to kill all of them. part of his hatred was caused by the situation that germany had been placed in after WWI, however, some of his feelings had nothing to do with WWI. but since the people needed someone who could promise them a way out of their economic problems, this man was put in power, and no one stopped him when he started his killing. more recently, iraq has been the focus of US bombing efforts since the early nineties. there are two things that will get them to stop. First, Saddam Hussein will have to give up and leave the seat of power, or he will have to die. either way, he will have to leave iraq, and the US/UN will be there as soon as he does to make sure that things go more their way. He hasnt given up in ten years, so the most likely scenario will be that he will have to die. military action is not helping to bring anything to an end. some will argue that we have no other choice because hussein will not allow the UN to inspect his weapons. Yes, this is true, but maybe there is more behind it than that. the US is bombing hussein because we think he is a jerk. there really isnt any more to it. the weapons are just an excuse, a pretty good one, granted. seriously though, he must know that if he tried anything that we would simply bulldoze his whole country into the ground in a matter of minutes. also, im fairly certain that if hussein wanted to conduct an inspection of US and other UN allied weapons, he also would not be allowed. But we have an excuse, he is the bad guy, the enemy. What do you think we are to him, friends. he doesnt like us anymore than we like him. but there are more things that scare me than those little countries. for instance, the military budget is over 300 billion dollars. i cannot possibly justify such an expense, considering that is it approximately 50 billion more than all of our allies spend combined. why is it that one nation that cannot afford to educate its citizens, or even make sure that they can all have access to health care, can afford such an immense military fee. and the rate is increasing. it is supposed to go up by another ten billion dollars this year, assuming that bush allows the increase. he probably will. the part about the military that really scares me is nuclear weapons. there are over thirty thousand still on the earth. this amount is sufficient to destroy the world several times over. they were a mistake to create, or even try to create. they are raw energy that have no other use than to destroy thousands of civlians. the affects are too large to limit to military targets, so there is no way that they could have any other use. we keep them as a deterent. but from what? the other nations that have them? i do not believe that any nation would actually use them after the damage in japan had been seen. to use such a weapon of mass destruction would cause a nation to be removed from contact with all other nations. it would also mean retaliatory bombings, and everything would go to hell in a handbasket. since neither the US nor Russia has made any tremendous progress in disabling their nukes, it has caused other nations to seek the secret behind them, and to create them as well. the UK, France, North Korea, Israel, India, Pakistan, and China are all of the nations that i know of that have some. india and pakistan have them to keep each other at arms length. if one of them had enough guts to make a deal with the other, and honor that deal, to remove its warheads, than the other nation probably would as well. as of 1995, all nuclear weapons were supposed to be disposed of, as said in the nuclear non-proliferation treaty which was was signed in 1970, and when 1995 came, it was extended indefintly.
I am a Quaker, and truly believe all of the Quaker beliefs. One of the most important being the testimony of non-violence. many people that know me would say that i am a violent person. thats because i have a twisted way of looking at life which makes many of the things i say sound violent, but the truth is, i could never actually hurt another person. the only reason i would attack someone would be if they had first committed a violent crime against someone that i love and care about. even then, i would not kill the person, nor let that person be killed. i am against the death penalty, and just about everything it stands for. the US is one of a few countries that still institutes the death penalty for crimes that are supposedly harsh and inhumane. however, the other countries that have the death penalty are those like iraq, turkey, and other nations which the US usually likes to put itself above. To become a member of the European Union, i believe that it is necessary to stop using the death penalty as a means of punishment. there are many ways that people can argue the death penalty as being a good thing. to put a few of those things at bay here are a few examples to counterpoint a few things. first, it costs more to kill someone than it does to leave them in jail for life, without parole. Second, it is not a deterent. once a criminal has been executed, there are usually some mimics of the crime that s/he has committed. who does it actually punish. being dead, there is no way to feel guilty about what you have done, or even to receive retribution. some may say that death is retribution, but it is quick and painless. and whos gonna kill the executioner? didnt the executee get injected because s/he killed someone, well what about the person that killed them? it doesnt matter who kills who, the fact is that one human being is killing another. this is also why i do not like guns, especially handguns. there is no other use for a handgun than to point it at another human and kill them. shotguns and rifles are used mainly for hunting, but still the concept of a weapon that allows you to kill something with less skill and less care bothers me. when you have to kill someone with a knife, you have to go up to them, and at least be able to hear the sounds that are made when you are pushing that blade into their flesh. i do not think that this is right either, i am very against it and do not ecourage killing in any way. i have no problem with hunting, but i have much more respect for those who bow hunt than those that use fire arms.
Another of the Quaker beliefs that i hold very dear is the equality testimony. this basically states that no one person is better than any other person, so it is not proper to call each other mr, mrs, ms, miss, professor, etc. there is one known being that is more important than humans though, and that is God. God deserves the utmost respect that we can give to it. i say it because i do not know whether or not God even has a sex, and i cannot know. i am not a particularly religious person. i do not think that it is right to slander God. I have full respect for all other religions, unless they require some sort of self sacrifice, in which i cannot understand how anyone could be so wrapped up in their beliefs that they think killing themselves before their time has come will bring about something good. I take the equality testimony and stretch it to include many non-human creatures. and by many, i mean all. i believe that an insect or animal--no matter how big or small--deserves the same rights as we would give one another. i am against using animals in labratory research, even if they cant feel it. why not use people? because they are the same species. because we can understand them when they say no. just because we dont know the laguage of birds doesnt mean that they want to used in experiments. just becasue we cant understand them saying no doesnt mean that they arent. i am not a vegatarian though. i very much like my meat. however, if an animal is going to be killed it should all be used. cows are used for meat and for leather. animals that are used in labs are used to experiment on, and then discarded in the trash. It makes no difference to me whether or not the animal was born in the lab and was supposed to be for that purpose. animals were not meant to be stuck in cages all their lives. they were meant to live in their natural habitat. i am also opposed to zoos. i dont like the idea that animals are kept in cages for people to look at. if people want to look at animals, go to their natural environment. if an animal is going to go extinct, then something should be done to help that animal in the wild, and to figure out why its going extinct. if its going extinct because of something that man is doing, than it is man that needs to change, not the animal.
this is it for now, ill probably add to this as time progresses.
here is an addition from a great book johnny got his gun.