Legislating From The Bench or Doing Their Job

Here in Iowa, our election day was not only for representatives, senators and a governor. In fact, a huge issue getting a lot of the play was on the retention or rejection of 3 Iowa Supreme Court justices. After all was said and done, Marsha K. Ternus, the chief justice; Michael J. Streit; and David L. Baker — received about 45 percent of the vote, making this the first time members of the state’s high court had been rejected by voters.

“I think it will send a message across the country that the power resides with the people,” said Bob Vander Plaats, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor who led the campaign. “It’s we the people, not we the courts.”

“What is so disturbing about this is that it really might cause judges in the future to be less willing to protect minorities out of fear that they might be voted out of office,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the University of California, Irvine, School of Law. “Something like this really does chill other judges.”

A massive portion of the campaign to oust the judges was funded by out of state groups, helping to support the efforts led by Vander Plaats, and heralded by Representative Steve King.

A lot of the arguments put forth by pundits and regular citizens alike was that the ouster was the result of Iowans being displeased with the state Supreme Court legislating from the bench. Now I may be a conservative, but this is one area where I break ranks with our so-called standard bearers.

For one, I personally think the idea of gay marriage is a non-issue and therefor irrelevant in regards to government oversight, save the license issuing process that heterosexual couples go through. Secondly, I personally believe the process behind letting citizens decide to stop homosexuals from being allowed to marry or not is ludicrous. Since the state Supreme Court said the legislation was essentially flawed and struck down as unconstitutional, gay marriage opponents and politicians have taken to their soapboxes to proclaim the injustice of an opinion differing from theirs. Boo-friggin-hoo!

I believe when allowing citizens to vote on the rights of other people's lives you have to look at a couple things. One- does there allowance to participate in some activity truly harm you? Two- Is the vote on an amendment to allow a freedom or restrict a freedom.

Personally, I know gay people, and have some people related to me who have chosen (or are naturally?) the homosexual lifestyle. Am I for gay activities? Not really. I have always and will always prefer women for romantic relations. But in regards to homosexuality I don't have to participate in, condone, or suffer from their lifestyle, or choose to associate myself with anyone who does. Whether or not two gay people decide to get married will ultimately never affect me personally, and I highly doubt it will affect any of the other straight people living around here.

Conservatives are always bitching about how they want the government to stay out of their personal lives and let them live and operate freely as they see fit. But then all of a sudden, hoards of queers appear on the horizon, in full war paint ready to charge on in and ruin their idea of civilization, and now they want to use our system of governance to prohibit the activities of individuals.

Look I get the God-fearing church crowd being dismayed at homosexual activities and lifestyle, I really do. Say what you want, let your heart be filled with all that hate you wish to hold, but remember a couple teachings from the Good Book. Do not judge, for that is the role of God. Hate the sin, love the sinner. Pull the plank out of your own eye before removing the speck from your brother's.

In other words, you aren't perfect, so who the hell are you to tell other people how wrong they are. Fix up your own house and let others fix their own house as they see fit. Again, you don't have to hang out with homosexuals or people who accept homosexuals as friends for that matter. You don't have to engage in homosexual behavior or gay marriage. Your church does not have to recognize anything related to homosexuals. In the same moment, keep your government out of it as well.

Quit pissing and moaning about how the government is trying to legislate your activities, and then turn around and do the same thing to someone you disagree with. That only makes you a hypocrite. And while everyone is entitled to their own wrong opinions, the rest of those around you are equally entitled to disagree with you and tell you to stuff it where the sun don't shine.

So, unlike many of my conservative friends, I voted to retain the three judges. I voted for the losing side. That doesn't make me wrong, just makes me in the minority at the polls. The judges did NOT legislate from the bench, contrary to popular opinion, but merely did their job in not restricting the freedoms of citizens under their jurisdiction.

I Am The Last Stand

"If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth." --Ronald Reagan

Okay, full disclosure here, I am not talking political and economical ideologies here. What I am talking about is the freedom to avoid people and the encroachment upon my life made by advancing technology in the communication industry.

Everyone around me has a cell phone these days. I remember when I first saw cell phones. One kid, Tim, had a bag phone for his car, which we all rode in to go to work. Cell phones those days looked more like the kind of phone the Army used to call in air strikes. Today they come in all manners of shape and size. They also have more functions than ever. You can talk, take photos, video, or you can text people. With the standard phone buttons or a fold out complete keyboard. You can type out your texts with individual characters or use the T9 technology that will predict your words and help you get through a message even faster. That is unless you're me, I am hopelessly useless with the T9 functions when I borrowed my wife's cell phone once to go to a niece's 6th grade basketball tourney. And the only reason I borrowed it was so that I could check in that I made it there, and for when I was coming back, depending on how the tourney went.

I am constantly asked to text someone, or just give them a call when I get to where ever it is we are hanging out, or when I get to their house to let them know I'm there to pick them up. I have to inform them that sorry, I don't have a cell phone!

I get some pretty weird looks. They are incredulous that I don't own the new iPhone or Blackberry cell phones. They ask how I can possibly live without a cell phone. I tell them essentially to quit projecting their way of life onto me. I was born before cell phones, I never had one attached to me surgically once they did come out, and I will probably most likely NEVER own one. I can live without one, because I lived half my life without them even existing. I put a caveat on that never, because I'm sure at some point someone will get it in their head to ban landlines altogether through government pressure. In which case I suppose I will then own a cell phone. However, I can guarantee that if this happens, my cellphone will stay in the same spot my current home phone's base is located.

I carry a cell phone for work. It is part of the equipment that goes with my little rentacop route. I pass it on to the guy who relieves me, who passes it on to the next guy, who will pass it back to me when I come back on duty. Other than that, I am generally at home. I have a home phone to be reached by, so I have no need for a cell phone. If I am not at work or at home, chances are likely that I am doing something I enjoy, and wish not to be contacted by anyone that isn't physically present with me. Some people just can't understand this. People I hang out with will keep checking their phone in the midst of conversations for new texts, missed calls, etc. Now I don't mind that they do this. After all, ask my wife, I'm not the best conversationalist in the world, so its not like I feel slighted that they are not interested in an already not-so-deep conversation to begin with. Writing is my better form of communication. Although with some people I may have to learn how to write in a texting form of language in order to hold their attention long enough for them to get the point I may be trying to make. But at the same time they have become slaves to this technology, and that I abhor. The whole point of the things were to be a tool of convenience, not a ruler of your life. You use the phone to dictate and communicate. Instead, it seems the phone and other gadgets now dictate their lives for them. Even by their own admission to be feel the need to be left alone, or that they are addicted, cellphone users just can't shut the thing off or leave it at home. They even have SCIENTIFIC STUDIES that show the addictive capabilities of these devices. And the people wonder why they can't get a private moment in their lives without worry that so-and-so is going to call or text them at any moment.

Now I know you're probably wondering what the hell my point is with all this rambling. Well it is this. I TRULY am the last stand when it comes to not having a cellphone to interfere with my life. Especially in my family. My sister has one, her hubby does too. My wife and all her siblings and parents have cell phones. The only reason my kids don't have cell phones is that I'm not paying for them, and they aren't old enough to have a job to support their own cell phone ownership.

Then there is me without a cell phone, along with my parents. But that all ended this last weekend. I received a call from my mom, who informed me that she had accompanied the Evil Duane (of the Branch Duanians of Sac City) downtown and bought themselves a phone for each of them, ad to give me their new cell numbers. I thought I had allies in my anti-technology fight. Yes I realize I'm saying I'm anti-technology while maintaining a blog site on a computer, an old Myspace account, and a Facebook page. The latter two things I once said I'd never do, and I broke down and added myself to the millions of mind numbing activities provided by a social networking site. In my defense, this was the only way to keep track of some friends. A cell phone is still not necessary to this mission, and if they provide me with an ultimatum that they will only communicate by texting from here on out, then I shall issue them my resignation from the relationship on a grounds of irreconcilable differences of conditional relationship status.

Things may not be going commie around here, but I see everyone throwing their hat in the ring in order to get the newest gadget, make themselves more trackable and susceptible to identity theft and surveillance by those who fly the silent black helicopters. Don't deny the conspiracy, we all know they do it. Ultimately its all part of a much larger conspiracy to use the world's population to get to me. Luckily I am hiding out in my super-ultra-secret underground bunker located at...oh wait, never mind. No one can find me here. The Mookified State is in full control.

My parents getting cell phones only reinforces my position that I was key to the strength of the Branch Duanian organization. However, having branched out on my own and running the Mookified Compound along with my trusty executive officer, Colonel Beauregard Sterling Lovell, the power and ultimate autonomy of the Branch Duanians faded, leaving me as the last stand. The Rebel Alliance is no more, as it is just I now, and no others to help in the fight against all that is evil, such as Big Cell Phone, and other technology demons like Apple!

Beyond Acknowledging Problem to Creating Solutions

Now, I don't claim to have all the answers to the world's problems, as many of them are a lot more complicated than you'll ever get from any one opiner or news source anyways.

It seems to me, that many of society's problems are now tied so closely to politics anymore than ever before. This politician or that politician has THE answer to solving the world's problems. And then people take the finite number of ideas and pick a side, either based on their own values or depending on which political party they choose to follow wholeheartedly.

Now when it comes to politics, I don't follow the strict teachings of any one party. Inevitably members of all parties come up with some of the dumbest ideas on how to deal with things, but I suppose I don't have nearly enough time in my life to get to all that such a conversation might encompass before dying of boredom or a stress induced stroke or heart attack. I probably lean more republican than democrat, or rather I should say conservative as opposed to liberal, in my viewpoints. It's not that I don't get the liberal point of view as to what needs to be fixed, but I often question the liberal viewpoint in how to fix many of the identified problems.

The subject I intend to cover here today is the concepts of race and poverty. while poverty affects people regardless of race, it is often the minority groups that suffer the highest amount of poverty, percentage-wise. Now many people, wen it comes to political viewpoints seem to have pigeonholed themselves and each other into two different camps:

Republicans: Whether by self-design, or accusations, seem to be completely in the "pull yourself up by the bootstraps and do it yourself" camp. The whole idea of everyman for himself. They spit out the names of many people who had nothing and rose to wealth and power on their own merit, so why shouldn't we let the poor and minorities do the same?

Democrats: By the same parameters, democrats are all about we need to solve this problem by throwing everyone's money at it, haphazardly, and without regard to the will of the people. It also seems that many of those in poverty identify best with the democratic party. Is it because the democrats care about them, are them, or keep shoving money and benefits their way?

Both sides have their merits and their flaws.

My proposal is partially outlined at http://mike4ccr.wordpress.com This is a secondary page for me, as I start to put ideas towards solutions out there. Granted its all raw ideas, but if you would go visit the page, leave me some comments there with your critiques, comments, or other ways to help develop the ideas before I put the plans into reality and action.

Essentially, I see the problems that exist in the form of race relations witht he overall human community, and I see the issues of poverty. Can I solve, or help to solve all the problems involved in these aspects? No, and I wouldn't claim to. But I do feel my ideas would be a good start on creating a starting point for solving some of the more technical aspects. The aspects of humanism involved with points of view are on the heads of each and every individual. All I can do is offer an outlet to solve the technical stuff, and with enough people behind the project, maybe, just maybe, we can sway some opinions as to what works and what doesn't.

The main idea is that we funnel money into the system to address issues of poverty in poor and minority neighborhoods. Unlike the democrat-based ideas, we use privately volunteered money only, and refuse government (taxpayer-funded) monies that seem to cncentrate on bureaucratic funding over solution based funding. Unlike the republican-based ideas, we help provide the support of those who have for those who don't, and involve ourselves in the solutions, instead of handing over some money and forgetting about it.

I propose to use the financial backing mostly from those who have it, along with some efforts fo those who care. And on the receiving end, lesser financial backing will occur, but I expect to see more of a concerted effort to re-build their communities, physically as well as socially. Through educational proposals at all levels, mentorship and activity programs, neighborhood beautification through the efforts of local residents, it is a wide-scope program I propose. With less money going into the administrative side of things, and more going toward fixing the problems directly.

It is no short-term solution by any means. I understand that once the program really starts working, we will still only be at the beginning stages, as on-going efforts will be needed to sustain any progress seen in the beginning. So before I lose my train of thought or any clear direction, please go visit my other page for Creative Community Renewal

Dihydrogen Monoxide- It's Everywhere!

Has the idea of thinking things through, asking a few questions, and practicing some common sense become a little too much to ask?