A semi-thought (about democracy)

It's the royal wedding today. (Wow, really? We hadn't noticed. Thank you so much for telling us, Sam, otherwise we'd have been in the dark all day!)

*ahem*
The presence of the wedding has given a lot of people the opportunity to say "oh em gee, why do we even have a royal family, it's sooooo undemocratic and oppressive and stuff". Which is silly, because the Royals don't actually get involved with the government in any way. If you want to attack an institution which is manipulating the government without our consent, then pick your favourite out of the trade union's congress and any huge investor from the business sector.

Lots of countries have heads of state which act as figureheads and don't really do anything, and lots of those heads of state are appointed, not elected. Among them is Spain, Canada, Norway, Japan- some of the most famously liberal and/or well-run countries in the world. The royals aren't the problem. Don't distract us from the real democracy-leeches by getting all hot and bothered about Liz, Charlie, Will and Kate. It's pointless and annoys me. 

Why I Am In Favour Of Reasonably Big Government

So, this is my stance on the size of the government etc:
-The vast majority of the economy should be private sector
-Healthcare and education should be provided by the government for everyone
-The government should own enough stuff to be able to provide housing and electricity to those living in poverty (while working to get them out of poverty)
-The government should be able to stop any business growing so large that it close-to or actually monopolises a section of the economy
-Further corporate regulation should occur (from the government) with regard to product safety, worker conditions and impact on the environment

My justification for the above stance is this:
The government is the organisation employed (effectively) by the people of a country to make their lives better. A big government, therefore, is not a threatening thing as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of the individual. It should be bigger than any one corporation (though not necessarily the private sector as a whole), as the people in charge of the government are directly accountable to the entire population, and the people in charge of a corporation are not. The private sector delivers best when it comes to non-essential things/things which nearly everyone can afford, so it should be allowed to take the reins on most of the economy. But when it comes to things we regard as basic human rights, like education and healthcare, it needs to be delivered by the state, not private businesses. The state has the ability and motivation to provide equal education to all; a business, broadly speaking, will do whatever will get it the most profit.

A qualification/expansion:
When I say "as long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of the individual," I mean this wholeheartedly. The personal lives of every human being remain that, personal, and theirs to control. The government's power is only justified when preventing people from harming or subjugating other people; and I extent this to regulating corporations to ensure they aren't decreasing the quality of life of their employees, or destroying the natural environment. I do not believe the government should ever interfere with marriage, abortion, freedom of speech, non-harmful religious practices, etc.

A problem with this which needs to be resolved:
The government we have now (I'm talking about Britain, but it applies to plenty of other countries as well) does not fit my description of it particularly well any more. Increasingly, we are losing our ability to hold the government to account. Trade unions and the City of London are getting far too involved; and MPs and whole governments are getting in with not enough people voting for them to justify it. We need to stop this. We need to limit the budgets of political parties, to shove the unions and the business sector as out of the picture as we can, and switch to a proportional system of voting, so that each government is truly the one we choose.

That's about all. I should probably just have titled this post "I'm a Leftie-Liberal-Face, this is why, LOL." But hey.

Social Awkwardness

Is annoying. Like, really annoying.

Those moments when you're alone with someone who you've no idea how well you know. Well, you do, but you don't know how well they think you know them, or how well they consider to know you. So you don't know what you are and aren't allowed to say. If you keep it to the basics, you're lame, if you chat with them like a friend, you might end up sounding rude.

Those moments where someone waves at a patch of reality which sort-of covers you, so you don't know whether or not they're waving at you. Your dilemma is to ignore them and look rude, or wave back and look like a needy fool.

Those moments when someone says something, and you're in your own world and don't register they're talking to you until a point in time where it's weird to respond, and now officially a rude unsociable buggerface.

Those moments where you can't help but feel you're a unnecessary third wheel.

Those moments where you somehow forget how to talk and end up repeating the same phrase three million times like a crappy broken record.

I hate those moments. They are slowly ruining my life.
Well, not really. It was hyperbole. But the point still stands.

Sorry, not political or philosophical musings today. Just trying to show solidarity with my fellow socially inept geeks/nerds/losers/whatever else we call ourselves. Or something. Hopefully it didn't sound too miserable. :P

~Gays Against Hate~

And not just anti-gay hate. All hate.

I'm surely becoming semi-notorious for reporting on events/stories. This time, my thoughts are stemming from a JoeMyGod story so old it's actually expired, and disappeared off his homepage. But there we go.
Essentially, what happened was this.
-Joe McMygod (I forget his real surname) won some award for gay bloggers
-Peter LaBarbera, a prominent antigay and twitter rival to Joe said that this showed the queer community endorsed hate against Christians, since Joe is extremely vocal (as vocal as a textual blogger can be, anyway) in his condemnation of the religious right
-Joe quoted this on his blog, saying that LaBarbera was in no position to criticise, given his continued description of gays as "perverts," "depraved", et al.

The problem with this is it creates a "he started it" dilemma; combined with "an eye for an eye". Why would we mirror the slanderous, hateful rhetoric of the antigay right when we know that it is that: slanderous antigay rhetoric?

We in the progay camp know that we have all the logic, rationality and love on our side. We know that we are simply standing up for what we are, whereas the hardline social conservatives are acting out of fear for that which is different from them. Essentially; we know we are right. Why on earth, then, would we bring ourselves to their level? What do we gain from hurling verbal abuse at them in response to their slander?

Right now we are caught in a cycle where every time someone from the religious right slanders homosexuals, we respond with more slander, they respond with yet more slander, and it goes on and on: achieving nothing. If we are to prove to the centrists that we are not the hateful ones, that we in no way want to infringe on the rights of other to live their lives the way they wish, then we have to adopt a rhetoric that does not condemn.

I know it's hard, when encountering homophobia, not to scream back at the ignorant. But we have to prove that we're better than them. That we're better than this kind of discourse. We have no hate for those who aren't gay. We don't want them to change the way they are; any more that we want to change the way we are. So viciously bitching about religion and conservatism is creating an inaccurate image of our political aims. It's not doing us any kind of favour.

The LGBT rights movement was started to counter hate. Lets not create more hate in it's name. Don't say "they're not changing the way they're talking, so I'm not going to change the way I'mn talking back at them". Be proactive, and be the one (or the side) who rises above it first.

 Gays Against Hate. All Hate.

Lookit Lookit!

I FINDED A LINK!

Disclamer: I didn't actually find it. A friend thrusted it my way over EffBee Chat.

Warning: If you are un-fond of gay marriage and/or awesomeness, you may not wish to view the link.

Otherwise, go soak up the awesome! ;)

Defending Philosophy

Being a person who studies Philosophy at AS and plans to continue with it next year, I'm often faced with such endearing remarks as "what a bloody waste of time!" or "how frightfully pointless!"
I always find myself defending it in terms of it's value as an academic subject (teaches you debatory, analytical skills etc.), but now I feel like defending it as a whole concept. So here goes.

According to Wiki McPedia:
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. It is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument. The word "philosophy" comes from the Greek philosophia, which literally means "love of wisdom".


It is this process, looking at fundamental problems through rational argument, which has lead to the rise of the sciences as we know them today. Physics, biology, theology, psychology; it all came and continues to stem from philosophy. If Socrates and Plato hadn't "done their thing", then physics, biology, theology and psychology would not exist.


But it's more than a kind of historical respect that I have for philosophy. By going back to basics the way only pure philosophy allows, you can sink your teeth into the big and smaller questions in a unique way. Every post-philosophical science had some basic, universally accepted truths; otherwise they couldn't function. But philosophy encourages you to question absolutely everything. If we don't dispel the theory we are questioning, then we produce new theories about something completely different. For example, questioning atomic theory could lead to new thoughts on the relationship between experience and reason in human understanding. (Think it through, do a bit of research, you'll understand!)


So that's that. Well, it's a very simplified and abridged version of that, but hey. Happy websurfing!

GAYDATE: Schools in Tennessee obligated to pretend homosexuality doesn't exist.

Okay, so I realise that "gaydate" may not be the best abbreviation for "gay update". Particularly as this is a "late gaydate". But hey, I got your attention!

So the story is, schools in the great American state of Tennessee have been legally barred from discussing the topic of homosexuality with children 14 of under. Obviously, this is a very silly idea. But WHY?

Well, firstly, if American sex ed is anything like British sex ed, (which we're assuming it is for argument's sake) then a fourteen-year-old will have already been taught all all the gory details about heterosexual sex and relationships, long ago. It's not going to have a great impact on their supposedly innocent minds to say "Oh BTW, some dudes do this stuff with dudes, and the same with chicks, LOL."

Secondly, a fourteen-year-old is already going to have heard what gay means. My nine-year-old sister knows what gay means, for heaven's sake. If a student really asks a question about what they've heard regarding gayness, what's a teacher supposed to do? Run from the room with her hands over her head screaming "INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT!!!"? I mean, seriously.

Thirdly, the only thing this is going to achieve is to ensure that when a child does encounter homosexuality, however that may be, they are going to respond with misunderstanding, intolerance, and fear. It will not make children "become" gay, it will not make them want to annihilate the nuclear family, it's pretty unlikely to "confuse" them too. Well, no more than every teenager on the planet is confused about their sexuality, anyway. And think of the gays; they're going to be a lot less confused if it is revealed to them that homosexuality is an actual thing rather than an urban myth/imaginary thing to insult people with.

And yes, I know I'm not terribly likely to change the minds of the Tennessee school board. But Who Dares Wins! Or something.

Gay people exist. There really is no point denying otherwise.  

More on Our Obsession with Celebrities

Today, I overheard a conversation between a footballer who apparently played for Cheltenham (not sure if he meant the main team or a juniors team or something; I'm hopeless at guessing people's ages) and his friend. He was complaining about (amongst many other things) how he was always being stopped for his autograph.

This really bemused me, given that I'm sure no-one in the café we were in had recognised his face, and he was hardly on the guest list for the Oprah show. Why would anyone want the autograph of such a Z-list celebrity?

But then, I though, why do people want autographs at all? Why do we care so much about the famous? The case above is important, as it shows how desperate some people must be if they've resorted to hardly-famous-at-all people to presumably make up for their lack of experience of actually-famous people.

In a sense, the only reason celebrities are set apart as a separate group of people at all is that we need people to look up to; for any reason we can find.
In a world where we didn't need idols/role models, musicians would publish music and perform in concerts, we would buy said music and attend said concerts, and if we enjoyed it, we might remember the artist's name so as to pursue more of their work. But we would have no interest at all in their personal life, or in band backstories, or interviews on  Oprah or GMTV, or any of that.

Our attitude towards the talented goes far beyond their dramatical/musical talents, yet somehow manages to completely avoid, in my opinion, the real person. We absorb the facts and figures of their lives like a history geek memorises the important dates of World War Two, but we have no desire to get to know these people like we do when we meet "real life people". Often, we forget that they are even multi-dimensional human beings, and expect them to act entirely based on an image we create from their work, and the side of themselves they use to promote that work. Few of us would ever expect to see Lady Gaga in normal clothes, but do you think she would go to a relatives funeral dressed in meat or bubbles or telephone hats?

I think we really need to explore where this weird obsession comes from. Is it simply something to aspire to? Is it a form of escapism? Is it something to pour our hopes and dreams onto when we can't cope with handling them ourselves? Is it some kind of Freudian sublimation?

Maybe we'll never know the answer. But it's important to try; because the culture of paparazzi, tabloid journalism and celebrity scandals we've built up is unhealthy and degenerating (as I've raved about before), and we won't be able to do a lot about it until we find the root cause of our idolisation. 

Yes to AV!

In May those in Britain over 18 have the opportunity to change our voting system for the first time in, well, ever.

First-past-the-post, our current system, is not just unfair; it creates parliaments which are grossly disproportionate to how the British people actually voted. In the 1951 election, for example, the Labour governments vote share increased, yet they lost the elections to the Tories, because of where there supporters lived.

AV is in no way an ideal system, but it is a step in the right direction. It's most significant virtue is that it removes power from the two major parties and allows the smaller parties to flourish, so the British people can have the confidence to vote for a party they truly believe in, and the British parliament can have a real opposition.

To expand on that point, think of how party politics works in Britain now. Ever since 1945, we have been presented with two choices: Labour or the Conservatives. This means all Blair, Thatcher, Major, Wilson and Cameron had to do to get elected was look marginally better than the other party. The governments we've had have only ever had to present themselves as the lesser of two evils, rather than actually create policies that would improve the lives of those in Britain.
There was a movement to challenge that system. It started as the SDP/Liberal Alliance, and became the Liberal Democrat Party. David Owen, David Steel, Paddy Ashdown and Charles Kennedy all stood as an alternative to red/blue politics. But now, thanks to Nick Clegg and his colleagues, their efforts have been wasted. Instead of balancing the red-blue seesaw, the Lib Dems simply run the in whichever direction it appears to be tilting.

It's apparent that the way to bring down two-party politics in Britain requires both new political movements and a new voting system to support them. The movements will have to take care of themselves, but we can force through the voting system. The best voting system would be Proportional Representation, but the Alternative Vote is a step in the right direction.

AV works like this:
-Voters rank the available candidates in order of preference
-When the results are counted, the first preferences are counted first, and if any candidate gets over 50% of the vote, they are elected
-If no candidate has over 50% of the vote, the least-supported candidate is eliminated, and the second choices of the people who voted for them are added to the total of the other candidates
-This continues until one candidate has over 50% of the vote

So how does this support smaller parties?
If, for example, someone's preferred political party was the Green Party, but they strongly preferred Labour over the Conservatives, then under first-past-the-post, they would probably vote for Labour, to support a slightly preferable government. But under AV, that voter can rank the Greens first, and Labour second, so that in the event of the Green candidate not winning in his constituency, his vote can still support Labour in order to keep  out the Tories. Therefore, people have much more confidence in voting for smaller parties.

The other benefit I haven't talked about much (but is made obvious by the description of AV) is that every candidate has to win a majority in their constituency, rather than sneaking in on 30% of the vote. This makes MPs far more accountable, easier to get rid of if they don't do their job, and thus making life more democratic for everyone.

So if you're over-18, and British, vote yes to AV.










Or don't, if you're not convinced.
Obviously.  

Insecurity

I've been thinking. Like you do.

There are many points in life where I wish I wasn't insecure. I wish I could just have the confidence to do things or say things without worrying about what people are going to think of me, or being terrified of failure. I wish I could stop bitching at myself whenever I did, like, anything.

But then, where would I be without my insecurity?
I would not be the person I am without constant self-criticism and the all-empowering desire to make people like me. For better or for worse? I don't know. But I don't think a totally self-assured me would necessarily be a good thing.

It goes without saying that everyone needs at least some capacity to step back and assess whatever it is they are doing. And it wouldn't be a full assessment if there wasn't at least one really negative part of you which didn't like  anything it saw. Think of it as a group discussion; there's always one really irritating person who insists on being negative about every suggestion, but if s/he didn't fill that role, a lot of problems would go unidentified.

We also need to be accountable to the wider human population. Virtually everything we do is going to affect other people in some way, and we need some kind of incentive to minimalise negative impact while enhancing positive impact as much as we can. If we truly, honestly, had no concern for the opinions of others, how would we know when we were spreading pain amongst our peers? How would we be motivated to stop?

Insecurity can go too far. It's important to stop our self-criticism from stopping us doing the things that need to be done, or preventing us from seeing the good side of ourselves. But we need to be aware of our faults as much as our virtues. We need to despise ourselves as much as we need to love ourselves.

So that's my potentially controversial conclusion of the week, anyway. 

No-one is Actually Racist

This may seem like a ridiculous claim. But hear me out.

We all know that any argument used to try and label one race as better than another is completely illogical. There is never any real rational basis for it, only wild, not-very-thought-out claims that contradict each other and generally don't make sense.

Which makes me think: is anyone actually stupid enough to believe in racial inequality? I don't think so. With the exception of someone who was genuinely mentally handicapped, no adult human would be able to look at the facts and interpret them so wildly from reality.

To that extent, I don't think racism is ever fuelled by a genuine belief that people of another ethnic background are inferior.
It is only ever fuelled by something I've touched on a number of times, and summed up in my "Don't Blame Religion" blog: "the desire to belong to an 'us' at the expense of a 'them'." Also consider the pedestal analogy in my "Porn Wikileaks/Stop Obsessing Over Celebrity Scandals" post.

There are many people in life who can only feel good about themselves if they feel "better" than certain other people, whether it's one person or a demographic group. And so they convince themselves that a certain group of people is inferior to them and can be looked down upon. It's also an easy means for a scapegoat; if you can siphon the blame for everything that goes wrong in your life onto blacks, Jews or Arabs, it avoids frustrating things like "self analysis" and "proactivity".

Those with a different skin colour or cultural background are an obvious choice- just because they're obviously different. In the eyes of those who need an inferior group of people, this marks them out, and allows them to be isolated, oppressed, and discriminated against. The vague logical justification comes later.

This doesn't make prejudice any more acceptable, not by a long shot. It's just interesting. Also, if we highlight the root cause of prejudice, we can work more effectively towards fighting against it.

Why PornWikiLeaks May Signify The End Of Civilised Society

This just in! (two days ago)

A site called Porn WikiLeaks has been publishing the names  of ex- and current porn stars to the internet. The site itself appears to be down at the moment, but it's allegedly been active since December, and it's certainly caused a lot of havoc while it was around.

The names appear to have been gathered via a security breach of the data base of an STI testing clinic in Los Angeles. The database is used by employers in the pornography industry to check whether potential actors and actresses are safe to work for them.
The man who claims to be behind it has helpfully informed us of his intentions behind creating the website with the following highly eloquent email response:

To get the gays out of straight porn and illegal gay pimps that have ruined porn and shut it down making condoms mandatory by the government now. The fag loving has got to stop. California is full of gay Mexicans and now they can even marry which is so wrong.


Anyway. Onto the opinions!

This is a despicable, degrading act whose enactor has shown no respect for his fellow human beings.
I don't care if you disagree with pornography. People's private details remain that, private. It's a natural reaction not to want to be judges by the scouring masses seeking to build a podium out of those they can think of as inferior; and it is a basic human right to fulfil that reaction, too. It is never acceptable to overrule that right, and degrade someone's quality of life to such a huge extent.


Porn WikiLeaks, in my view, is the ultimate consequence of the culture that has built up around tabloid journalism and the like. Increasingly, we are seeing anyone who strays into the public arena as images to direct hate and love towards, and forget that they are humans, with, you know, rights and such. We are viewing anyone with any vague celebrity status as characters in some long-running sitcom, whose misfortunes exist only for our entertainment- and as such, we somehow consider their personal details to be our rightful property. And as I mentioned earlier; we continue to use excessively the failures and imperfections of others to make ourselves feel better. It's all quite sickening. 


We can get along just as well in life, probably much better, without obsessing over the details of the lives of some random people who are supposed to be more talented at a certain profession than average people. Is it too much to ask for us to focus on our own lives? No, it's not. In fact, it's the only rational thing to do. Now do it.


This blog post sort of swung pretty widely between two not-very-related topics, but hopefully it made sense. I've wanted to rant about tabloid journalism for a while now, and while this was more of an incomplete and unsatisfactory half-rant, at least I've got started!


So, yeah. Porn stars are people too. Now go be nice to them. 

Cameron to guest star in Lady Gaga video

Well, how amusing!

Apparently the Tory PM is a "huge Lady Gaga fan," and agreed to make a cameo appearance in one of her music videos in order to promote gay rights.

The song, probably not coincidentally, is called "government hooker," and will be a track on Born This Way.
You can hear some version of the song here. 

While we all know Dave's doing it purely for the publicity, it is a pretty good idea. It'll be funny, for one thing, and it'll make a pretty strong statement the the Conservatives aren't anti-gay any more. I'm not convinced that this term's government will make any real progress in regard to gay rights, but at least we know we probably won't be getting another Section 28.