Now, I can understand why some people are suspicious of the government. We've seen historically what can happen when one entity has too much power and/or control over a group.
Pogroms might occur, slaughters could happen, oppression can ensue, and sadness may run rampant. There could be little, if any, higher regulation or co-regulation.
It doesn't have to be that way, however, if we do it correctly.
What sparked this rant-of-sorts was me hearing on our local news station a few people expressing their gripes about the City of Atlanta possibly banning smoking in public parks. Some said, among other things, that the government is too big, that it should be smaller, and has no right to "meddle" or "infringe" in/on the affairs of the general populace's "right" to do as they choose with their lives.
My take is this:
Certainly, there are elements one most likely can govern by oneself.
The government doesn't need to tell you when you eat, if you eat, if you exercise, if you watch television, if you decide to dye your hair purple… This is because these are personal decisions affecting only you. If you eat sporadically throughout the day, that's your choice. If you decide to not eat because it's Ramadān, trendy, or you don't feel like it, that's your decision influencing solely your physical/mental(/spiritual) health and well-being in general.
If you don't eat and you're pregnant, however, that's different. You are willingly - though it may or not be wittingly - influencing another's life. This may bring in the debate on when that clump of mitotic cells becomes a cute bundle of joy, but that's another debate.
The point is, you're influencing another life.
Speed limits, traffic signs, signals, and regulations, and lots of other governmental interventions in these regards exist because somewhere along historically the "powers that be" left us to make "common-sense" decisions, we'd failed at it — perhaps killing someone in our devices-leaving — and so they left it *again* to us as a voting population, or those we'd entrusted to have our best interests at heart, to protect the majority of us from those who made the life-canceling (and, me judgmentally saying, stupid) decisions.
So, I think they should ban the smoking in public parks. People have been in the presence of smokers and have asked them to stop, and some graciously do or move to prevent further offense. From what I've witnessed, though, there is a strong, vocal subsection of smokers who believe they should smoke wherever they choose, and that those who don't smoke and feel uncomfortable around smoke should be the ones to move.
This insensitivity influences others. It's your personal right to smoke or not, because you are affecting your own life. You can smoke among other smokers because you each are willing participants unbothered that others are smoking around you. Smoking around non-smokers who do not wish smoke in their breathing space does affect someone else.
There is a half-joke in Loganville that the City and Gwinnett/Walton County doesn't do anything until someone dies. This seems to be true, because traffic light referenda don't seem to happen until someone dies. Special Local-Option Sales Taxes (SpLOSTs) don't go to ballot until there's a death, it seems.
Even one death.
If there is one person who feels the personal right to live healthfully is under threat because of another, and that other does not respect the first person's personal right — and that continues despite the sense of dignity/deference to all healthy personal rights, (quanti-/quali-)fiable over time — the government should intervene.
God knows, the petulant children harming others for their own comfort aren't making the right decisions themselves…
07 July 2012
13 April 2012
Ligature
It's funny how much I've been thinking about how often it seems we lump things with very distinct differences together.
It started Wednesday while I was watching Modern Family. Sofía Vergara's character Gloria couldn't think of the animal, so she said it in Spanish: ardilla. Me speaking and knowing Spanish, I'd always known ardilla to mean "chipmunk", so when Gloria's son translated it as squirrel, it surprised me. Checking the RAE's dictionary, I found it to be both chipmunk and squirrel. I thought this: how can Spanish lump together two similar but *very* different mammals under the same word? They share a kingdom, phylum, class, order and family. Close enough, but they can't interbreed viably, they look different, act differently. How can that be?
I brought this up with one of my Colombian co-workers/friends - Alix - and it brought up many trains of thought.
How, for example, do Spanish-speakers principally, from my experience, call all Asians "chinos"? Or after 9-11, I was hearing a lot of the Cubans around me referring to Arabs universally as "talibanes".
Backing to the animal theme, I'd brought up how dissimilar squirrels and chipmunks are, and asked if you would lump lions and tigers together. The response was, of course, no, because they're different. We kind of do the same thing in English quite a bit, like with turtles and tortoises.
I suppose I'm more sensitive to meaning in Spanish since it's my adopted language and not my main language, or I suppose because I'm me.
But chipmunks aren't squirrels, damn it!
It started Wednesday while I was watching Modern Family. Sofía Vergara's character Gloria couldn't think of the animal, so she said it in Spanish: ardilla. Me speaking and knowing Spanish, I'd always known ardilla to mean "chipmunk", so when Gloria's son translated it as squirrel, it surprised me. Checking the RAE's dictionary, I found it to be both chipmunk and squirrel. I thought this: how can Spanish lump together two similar but *very* different mammals under the same word? They share a kingdom, phylum, class, order and family. Close enough, but they can't interbreed viably, they look different, act differently. How can that be?
I brought this up with one of my Colombian co-workers/friends - Alix - and it brought up many trains of thought.
How, for example, do Spanish-speakers principally, from my experience, call all Asians "chinos"? Or after 9-11, I was hearing a lot of the Cubans around me referring to Arabs universally as "talibanes".
Backing to the animal theme, I'd brought up how dissimilar squirrels and chipmunks are, and asked if you would lump lions and tigers together. The response was, of course, no, because they're different. We kind of do the same thing in English quite a bit, like with turtles and tortoises.
I suppose I'm more sensitive to meaning in Spanish since it's my adopted language and not my main language, or I suppose because I'm me.
But chipmunks aren't squirrels, damn it!
01 March 2012
Soviet Jokes
#1: Yuri Brezhnev is at the Moscow Olympic Games and is giving a speech. He looks out and starts: "Oooooohhhhhh… Oooooohhhhhh…
Oooooohhhhhh… Oooooohhhhhh… Oooooohhhhhh…" His assistant walks up to him and says in his ear, "Sir, those are the Olympic Rings. You don't read those."
#2: A grandfather sitting down with his grandson, talking about Soviet history. His grandson asks "Grandpa was the Chernobyl accident really all that bad?" The grandfather responds, patting his grandson on his head, "No, son, it was not. We are all still here, aren't we?" The grandson then asks, "Grandpa, were there any bad effects of Chernobyl at all?" The grandfather says, "No, son, there were none at all." He then reaches out to pat his grandson on his second head.
#3: An aide runs to Vladimir Putin, exclaiming, "The polls are in and unfortunately Gennady Zyuganov of the Communist Party is up at 75 percent of the vote." Putin's eyes widen at this news. The aide realizes this and says, "Oh, don't worry, sir. You're beating him. You have *76* percent."
Oooooohhhhhh… Oooooohhhhhh… Oooooohhhhhh…" His assistant walks up to him and says in his ear, "Sir, those are the Olympic Rings. You don't read those."
#2: A grandfather sitting down with his grandson, talking about Soviet history. His grandson asks "Grandpa was the Chernobyl accident really all that bad?" The grandfather responds, patting his grandson on his head, "No, son, it was not. We are all still here, aren't we?" The grandson then asks, "Grandpa, were there any bad effects of Chernobyl at all?" The grandfather says, "No, son, there were none at all." He then reaches out to pat his grandson on his second head.
#3: An aide runs to Vladimir Putin, exclaiming, "The polls are in and unfortunately Gennady Zyuganov of the Communist Party is up at 75 percent of the vote." Putin's eyes widen at this news. The aide realizes this and says, "Oh, don't worry, sir. You're beating him. You have *76* percent."
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