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.