I know it's almost Valentine's Day, and everyone is thinking about love, commitment, relationships. Or else protesting the holiday and celebrating Single's Awareness Day. Regardless, romance is on people's minds.

The kind I want to talk about is capital-R: that is, Romantic. Romanticism, the literary movement at the turn of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century that focused on emotions as the way to experience the world instead of the filter of rationalism. I have a class about it this semester, so it's on my mind. Today we were reading Blake's "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell."

First I should say, Blake himself was very anti-religious. Many of his poems point out the hypocrisy of the church of the time, how it failed to help the poor, had corrupt leaders, things like that. "Marriage" is actually designed to stand against everything Christianity was at the time; it talks of Satan as a hero (a la Milton), Angels as stupid and wrong, and the Ten Commandments as the source of strife.

And yet, reading this poem with my background and my faith, I am nevertheless struck by something Blake says: "If Jesus Christ is the greatest man, you ought to love him in the greatest degree [here he basically says that Jesus broke several commandments]... Jesus was all virtue and acted from impulse, not from rules."

Obviously, the bit about loving Christ to the greatest degree resonated with me as being so so true, regardless of how Blake intended the line to be read. But I want to look more deeply into the second part of that: "Jesus was all virtue and acted from impulse, not from rules."

( Jesus the Rule Breaker )

According to Peter Pan, those are the things you need in order to fly. I'm starting to think that these might be what we need in the realm of politics. And I'm not even joking.

The Iowa Caucus, the first real nominating race in the country, is over, and Mitt Romney won (yay? I guess?). By eight votes. Do you know how close that is? It's statistically not even anywhere close to being an actual win. And I'm willing to bet that a large part of the incredible closeness of the race is due to faith (Romney's Mormon faith, specifically) and trust (a lack of it; people say Romney is either a liberal (*snort in amusement*) or a "weather vane" who will say whatever he thinks voters want to hear.)

In the brouhaha about this, many outlets aren't covering the National Defense Authorization Act, which Obama just signed. Before you go Googling it (which you can totally do. But I will warn you it will terrify you for various reasons), I want to link you to a few things I found very helpful when making sense of all of it, the first being the actual text of the law. That's the Senate version, which was slightly modified in the conference version, but the main provision I'm talking about, Sections 1031 and 1032 there; 1021 in the final version, are the same.

The second is this post I read in the beginning of December, pointing out the exact wording of the bill linked above. Granted, that's by some random person on tumblr- even if he seems to know what he's talking about- and you may not be inclined to believe it. That's fine; pretty smart, even, because you know how the Internet is. So how about this, from a more scholarly blog? It talks about a wider range of the bill's provisions and has lots of links and background information.

I leave you to draw your own conclusions about it. Obama has said his administration won't interpret Section 1021 as applying to American citizens. And again, I'll leave you to decide whether to believe him or not.

And that's entirely my point here. Asking if you believe what the president says is just asking if you trust him and his word. There are a large number of people who blatantly don't trust the President, whether it's about this or about where he was born. Frankly, the birther stuff really really annoys me; do people honestly think something like that wouldn't have been uncovered? Yes, they do- they don't trust the system at all.

This is a major reason the partisanship is such a huge problem. Not only does it clog up Congress and stall the lawmaking process, not only does it cause the vitriolic, uncivil speech that characterizes political "discourse" nowadays, it contributes to a lack of trust. In fact, I'd be willing to bet lack of trust causes those other two things, and more besides. Partisanism creates an us-versus-them dynamic, which easily leads to an ingroup-outgroup setting. Psychology tells us that people trust the other members of their group and distrust members of other groups- sound familiar?

So, here, for instance, Republicans are calling Obama a traitor (I'm not kidding), fascist, socialist etc. and ignore his signing statement. They don't trust him to abide by it anyway. They also don't trust that he and other Democrats in power actually have the best interests of the American people at heart when they make decisions.

Democrats do it, too. How often do we see on comments and forums that "Republicans don't care about you only their corporate donors"? I can't even read the forums or comment sections anymore, it's gotten so bad.

Media bias accusations are another by-product of the severe cynicism/distrust of the people. Teachers always say to pay attention to your sources because of bias. There are people I know who won't believe anything if Fox News doesn't say it because they don't trust any other outlet- and people who won't believe it if Fox does report the story. It all comes down to not trusting the "other side" to speak truth or facts (I'm utterly convinced the truth and the facts are two different things.) I don't know about you, but if I read something on a site that's known to lean right I find more things wrong with their arguments than left-leaning sites, because I'm more alert for them. Again, trust.

This renewed interest in NDAA was sparked by Mike going on a rant about it, which was characteristically filled with right-wing talking points and ad hominem attacks. It's super petty of me, but I set out to prove his OMG-end-of-civil-liberties ravings wrong. I found that, depending on which links you clicked on, you could argue successfully either position. Facts support both- what is the truth?

For me, I don't think NDAA dismantles the Bill of Rights. It says "Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing laws or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens..." and I'm inclined to believe it. I'm also inclined to believe Obama when he says he'll hold to the Bill of rights in interpreting this law. AND I trust the court system to rule the provision unconstitutional should a challenge arise.

This is pretty rare, I know. No one trusts the courts, or Congress. And they certainly do things that call that trust into question (Citizens United- seriously, WTF? and the fact that Congress pork-barrels stuff, which makes it seem like they're trying to hide things. Also, there was an amendment to NDAA to state more explicitly that its detainment procedures don't apply to US citizens, and Congress voted against it. Let that sink in for a second.) HOWEVER, I do believe that our Constitution is a singularly amazing document, and the form of government it sets up is the best in the world. So I have faith that it will uphold itself- I really do think it can do that- and protect us.

Maybe I'm naive. I might very well discover myself to be later on in life. But for now I don't see how I can operate in the world and not believe the best of people, including elected officials. I've met some of them and they've seemed honest and likeable for the most part. I also have faith that the people aren't fooled as easily as some seem to think, and if someone truly was trying to undermine the country from the inside they'd be found out. I cannot function under any other assumption.

I think that if more people would trust each other- trust that the shopkeeper isn't out to rip you off, the customer service representative isn't being purposefully unhelpful, that the people in government aren't without fail corrupt and ego-centric- things could be better. I think members of Congress would be more willing to cooperate with the other side if they trusted that he or she wanted the same thing they did: what is best for the American people. Maybe they have a different view of the way to achieve that goal, but if they looked at the overall goal first I think they would be more amiable to compromise.

What I don't know, though, is how to achieve this. Maybe if the people give this trust to the elected officials, they will rise to the occasion and show they deserve it. (I actually think that this is the best strategy for the other, smaller instances of distrust in our everyday lives.) A Republican trusting a Democrat to have noble intentions might make said Democrat more likely to articulate those intentions. But maybe that wouldn't work. Likely, the level of distrust is so high no one would even bother to try.

I guess this is where the pixie dust comes in. Because sometimes I really do think it would take an act of God, a supernatural force, to get people to have that trust and goodwill again. Especially in relation to government, and within it. I don't like to end on a depressing note on these posts, but I honestly don't know how else. I want the nation to be able to fly, to soar, but if we're missing the faith and trust, and many people the happy thoughts Peter also mentions, that I think pixie dust might be the only way to reach the morning.

At layout last week, one of my colleagues on the paper staff and I were talking about a paper we had to write for one of our professors. It was late, we were tired, and sometimes it's fun to complain, admittedly, but one of the things someone said really bothered me: "I think we just learn how to write for the professor, instead of learning how to write better."

Everyone nodded in agreement, and I will admit that part of the "strategy" of school success at any grade level is to find out what the teacher likes or expects to hear and write it. What I take issue with is the second part of that statement, that this does not improve one's writing ability. Part of this is because I'm of the school that believes that the only way to learn how to write really is just to do it, come what may. But there's more to it than that.

November is National Novel Writing Month, as some of you might be know. And this November, as last year, I decided to participate. (I won, too; 51,310 words by November 30. Part of the reason I mention this is because this is my reason for neglecting this blog so horribly. I honestly thought I could handle doing blog posts and NaNo, because I did so last year, but obviously things didn't work out as I'd planned. I only say this for those who bookmarked this and was expecting updates; I'm really sorry to disappoint. I'm disappointed in myself, too).

So, back to NaNo: My project this year was actually a novel, as opposed to last year's fanfic. I came into it all excited about my idea, thinking the structure of it would help me to finish. As it turned out, this vignettes-knitted-together thing had the opposite effect; without a set end point I found myself getting lost and overwhelmed- what section do I write first? How many sections will there be? And so on.

After what must have been six attempts at that, I scrapped it and started an entirely new story. It was about a writer, ironically enough (or not, actually, as you'll see). And though it took me until the very last day, I did it. I completed my novel, and I felt really good about myself in the process.
( Read more... )

I tried to start this post here at least a half dozen times, all with little to no success. And the "little to" part is being overly generous. I had planned to write about the Christian Right, but couldn't get into my flow. I was going to do a review/explication of Casting Crown's new song "Jesus Friend of Sinners."

Instead, I'm going to talk about both of those things, and yet neither of them.

Today in Bible study, we read an article talking about how church shouldn't be cool. In trying to be cool, churches lose the hard-core believers, the faithful who liked the status quo, and with them the truest sense of who they are as a church. And the "coolness" becomes a distraction from what really matters: Jesus. This seemingly innocuous article led to a discussion lasting a good half hour where each person basically gave her opinion about which churches are trying to be "cool" and how that's wrong and she doesn't like what it entails.

We had a new girl come tonight who was "extreme Catholic," in her own words, who had a problem with the singing and swaying of nondenominational churches- "singing songs and having fun" rather than worshiping God- the way said churches treat the Eucharist, etc etc. She also had a problem with people from that church judging her (negatively) for her Catholicism. And I thought, "Well, isn't that what she herself is doing?"

So we spent a long time going on about how X church does this or that or the other thing wrong and really never learned much, because we all had different opinions about what is right or wrong for a church to do. And probably each of us thinking, as I will admit I was, "who is she to judge?"

( Well, who are any of us to judge? )

Hello!

Long time no see. I've been told it's perfectly acceptable for junior year of college to be ridiculously stressful and busy, but I still feel bad about never posting. Also, I went to a "Writing your Way Into a Career" seminar and received such advice as "write all the time" and "keep up your social networks;" a soon-to-be-published author even mentioned LJ by name. So, I've decided to commit to a once a week blog entry. In theory. But, into this with a positive attitude! Go forth, I say!

For my re-entry into the blogging world, I'm tackling the Occupy Wall Street movement. Well, that's pretty huge, so specifically I'm discussing why, in my opinion, the left should embrace this movement (exactly what it says on the tin.)

One major reason is momentum. Obama's having some trouble getting his jobs bill passed (which draws a stunning lack of surprise from me, by the way) because Republicans, bolstered by the Tea Party's enthusiasm, refuse to budge. Well, OWS could be the liberal version of the Tea Party. It's a group of mainly younger Americans, many of them college students, (with time and enthusiasm to spare) but there are also older people, middle aged people, black, white- basically, a large slice that cuts through demographics. This is what the Tea Party advertises itself to be, making OWS a left-leaning alternative to that movement. And the protesters are obviously dedicated to the cause if they're camping out in tents and risking pepper spray and arrests. This could be the type of mobilization Democrats need to push back against the Republican tide.
( Read more... )

Was America founded as a Christian nation?

At first glance, this seems like a straightforward question. Yes, or no. But even a minute's contemplation leads to a fairly major problem: when it says founded, is it referring to the colonists who first set foot here, or the statesmen who set forth our Constitution a hundred years later? Also, how does one even define a Christian nation? One whose national religion is Christianity- clearly not the US? Or one guided by Christian principles? In that case, how are you to separate out the principles that are from Christianity as opposed to, say, Judaism, which has the same holy book, or Islam, which has the same god? And, Western culture is so steeped in the Judea-Christian tradition that most people believe in central tenets of Christianity- charity, patience, moderation, general good-neighbor stuff- without adhering to that religion that it's hard to tell which of our beliefs stems from religion and which from a general sense of right and wrong.

Clearly, there is a lot going on with this question. And somehow I am supposed to parse it all out into, at maximum, a five page paper in about a week for my Religion and Politics class. Daunting task. You can think of this post in some ways as me trying to figure out how in the world I can do that, starting with what I actually believe. But moreso than that, this is me looking at the issue from a theological perspective as opposed to the academic one.

Because, for me, God is first. I define myself as a Christian before all other things, and so I want to look at the question theologically before trying to build a more academic (secular?) argument. So, that said, I'd love for the answer to be 'yes.' Yes, we were founded as a Christian nation, a city on a hill, a light for other nations. Yes, God favors us because of this. I want to believe that, very badly. I try to follow Christ's teachings in my own life, in everything I do. And so do other Christians. Which is why, faith-wise, as much as I want it to be so, I don't really think America was founded to be a Christian nation. If the Founders were as religious as some claim, if God was as influential in their thought processes as many on the right say He was, why wouldn't it be more obvious?

( Read more... )

State politics this time! The national stuff is a mess, but I've always been rather proud of my state government and how it operates. I mean, we've got damn good schools (aside from the inner city), a AAA bond rating, fairly good transit systems, etc. Right now, though, I am quite upset. And, hey, it's not Republicans this time! It's everybody. Just... no.

Earlier this year, I was so disgusted by the legislature because they refused to even vote on the same-sex marriage bill. The House just shunted it back into committee right near the end of the session, which killed the bill. What a total cop out! At least have the guts to take a vote one way or the other! Or, hey, put it to a referendum if you aren't going to do your job.

Like Pat McDonough, for example, a delegate in the Maryland House. He is starting a petition to put the Maryland DREAM Act to a referendum. I think this is a great way to make sure people's voice are heard, and to create incentive for people to get informed about the issue.

This bill provides in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants. At community college. IF their parents have paid state income taxes for the three years prior to the year they apply. and if they meet the GPA requirements etc. It does *not* force schools to accept them, or, impose quotas for how many must be accepted at schools (which violates Bakke v. California. I've told Mike this three separate times and he refuses to listen). It does *not* impact private schools where the in-state and out-of-state rates are the same.

So, basically, it allows illegal immigrant students who live in Maryland and have graduated from the Maryland school systems the option of going to community college for the same price as their classmates. And if they succeed in community college they can transfer to a 4-year university, also with in-state rates. IF they can afford the tuition- again, it's not free college. People going on about how they had to work four jobs to pay for school can shut up, because these people still have to pay for school themselves, by working.

That's where I'm bothered by this, actually. If the student or his parent has to pay some tuition himself (which is only fair!), they need money. Yet if they are here illegally, they can't legally get a job to earn that money. So where is it coming from? It perpetuates law-breaking. I guess that if the child is born in the US they are a US citizen and thus they can legally work, but not their parents. So, yeah, I understand that the child isn't responsible for his parents sneaking over illegally, but I'm a little bit uneasy about the whole thing. Or, if the child is illegal too, because of the circumstances, he wouldn't legally be allowed to get a job even with a degree. In that case, it's pointless to have such a law in the books, if the expected benefit is, in reality, non-existent.

Maybe... okay, it sounds heartless at first, but: maybe you could use this to tighten up immigration enforcement. Like, the child would be a citizen because he was born here. But his parents have to apply for legal status in order for him to qualify. I'll admit I know next to nothing about the immigration process in the US, so I'm not sure how possible that is... I know Obama was talking about "path to citizenship" laws for people but I tend to think they didn't pass. But, yeah. I think it's wrong to punish the children who were born here because their parents crossed over illegally (it wasn't something the child had control over!). But there's also something to be said about making sure our immigration laws are followed.

It's anathema to those in power, I know, but I can think of some long-term solutions: 1) Reform our immigration system so it's easier for people to come here through legal means. Legal immigrants are fine (unless the problem people have really is racism or xenophobia, in which case they can go sit in a corner and keep to themselves). Or, an even BETTER solution: 2) Help improve Latin America. Obama's committing money to helping fledgling democracies in Egypt and other Middle East countries (which is amazing!!), so why not see about giving aid to Central America? Even just Mexico- our immediate neighbor. If we help improve the situation there, maybe supporting their government to stop to drug cartels, build infrastructure, and the like, then people will have more incentive to stay there. And if they step up border patrols on their end, that's less work for us which saves some money.

Granted, this won't happen. People just don't care about conditions on the ground in Mexico (or anywhere in the world that's not here...), and we don't have the money right now regardless. But I said long-term solutions. It's the only way to really stop the influx. (Hey- it doesn't have to be the government that does it! What about all these corporations outsourcing to India and such. Why can't they go to Mexico and open factories? People come here for jobs; why can't multi-national companies bring jobs there?)

( Issue Number 2 )
Have to end on a happy note here: MITT ROMNEY IS GOING TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT!!!!

I find myself almost wishing that the Rapture did happen Saturday.

Dramatic, I know, but there is just so much sorrow and disgust in my heart over the actions of the human race. Specifically, the Republicans in the US Congress.

First we have Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who is saying the House won't vote to provide aid to tornado victims without budget cuts elsewhere. Now, pay-as-you-go measures are obviously (literally; it's just common sense) awesome and should definitely be implemented. (Although, I will point out that it was Bush who let the pay-as-you-go requirement expire in the first place.) BUT the time to do this isn't when you have people dying in the streets. It really, really isn't.

We also have the whole debt ceiling fiasco. The US has hit our debt limit, meaning we cannot borrow any more money to pay off our debts. This is a recurring thing; Congresspeople always vote against it once, on principle, and then the Fed comes out with dire predictions about what will happen if we don't raise it, and the second vote passes. But now, we have an impasse, with leaders signalling they will only approve an increase if we also have massive budget cuts. Meanwhile, the Treasury department is forced to make ends meet by tapping into federal employee's pension funds. That is people's retirement money. They need that.

AND don't even get me started on the Medicare changes proposed by Paul Ryan. The CBO clearly says that under the plan, seniors will pay more for their health care. Out-of-pocket costs will increase for these people who have no money. They say that some people "will choose not to purchase insurance" and thus be at risk of losing everything if something catastrophic happens. (And, PPACA will be effectively nullified due to lack of funding, so that's nothing to stop those people from going without insurance and not provisions against denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. SO the seniors with such conditions would either (a)pay even MORE because rates would be hire or (b)not have insurance to defray costs of treatment. In short, the people who need insurance the most and who have the least ability to pay will be paying the most or going without.)

I'm feeling rather generous- I'll admit that the goal of deficit reduction is an admirable one. But the fact remains that people are suffering. At some point, the well-being of the disadvantaged has to come before politics, before the pettiness and ambition that makes up Washington. PEOPLE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN POLITICS.

The thing that irks me the most- enrages me, even- is that these people represent themselves as Christian. How is it remotely Christian to ignore the plight of others? Rather, aren't we supposed to selflessly help the poor, the needy, anyone? Jesus said we should get rid of all our possessions, give them to the poor, in order to follow Him. While that sounds extreme in today's world, the point behind it is not- selflessness. Generosity. And the paradox is that church-going people give money to the church for use for the poor, yet they don't want to pay taxes to the government for the support of programs like Medicare, Social Security, food stamps, etc etc, which do the same thing. It can't be that different... People probably get turned off by the bureaucracy of the government and are concerned that their money isn't going to actually help, despite the ridiculous (or, not really, in my opinion) portion of our annual budget that goes to just SS and Medicare.

Honestly, I blame the Tea Party. They are so far to the right that it is ridiculous. Look at a similar situation that happened six years ago, with Katrina. Tom DeLay knew that it was important to help the citizens of Louisiana above all else, so he approved deficit spending in order to get money to do so. THIS is why we have government: to help the people. I think he definitely made the right call.

Then, he immediately got bashed by conservatives for not cutting from somewhere else. Which is why Cantor took his stance, I think. Especially because Tea Partiers are already unhappy that he isn't "conservative enough" and they want to replace him with someone else. Someone more extreme. Who will propose even more ludicrous things.

Many Democrats are happy about the extremism on the other side, because it increases our chances in 2012. (They cite New York 26, by the way, where the Democrat won handily in a heavily-Republican area as a result of the Medicare plan.) But I'm not. It terrifies me. Because if they run, they could win. And if they win, we'll have more of this kind of stuff going on, and that's unacceptable.

It was Ronald Reagan who said "A hungry child knows no politics." The Republicans in Congress should take a page out of Reagan's book, especially considering they admire the man so very much, and recognize that sick seniors, weather-ravaged families, and workers' retirements know no politics, either. Helping people should go before all of the partisanship.

Since when did it become a bad thing not to blindly stick to the party line and vote for something you support even if it originated in the other party?

Caveat: I am fully aware that not all Republicans are unreasonable. See: Mitt Romney, Rudy Guiliani. But those people are increasingly being marginalized by the ultra-far-right members of the party.

Case in point: Newt Gingrich. I don't really like Gingrich all that much; he's just synonymous with the old establishment which I feel is ridiculously flawed and needs to be reformed. But his comments on Meet the Press seemed to show a certain independence. He spoke against the Ryan budget plan, his party's rallying point. I was impressed that he didn't blindly follow the party line, quite frankly. His point that it isn't good to impose "radical change from either the right or the left" is so reasonable as to be common sense.

Of course, he immediately back-tracked and said that everything he said on that program was a mistake. (And then blamed David Gregory for asking leading questions and "trapping him," which is so untrue on so many levels, and just eliminated any respect he might have gained because (a)Gregory is one of the only people I consider an actual journalist because he doesn't do stuff like that, he just tries to to get the facts straight and (b) it isn't taking responsibility for his actions. They are your words; he didn't make you say them.) This is because he alienated his base with the remarks (*cough*and lost a lot of campaign donors*cough*), and that is the biggest mistake the Republican candidates can make. Mike was going on a rant about Newt is "a liberal in Republican's clothing"- um, Newt Gingrich is liberal? Really? It's because of his Ryan remarks.

I'm a (proud) liberal, so you'd think I'd be happy about a strong candidate like Newt shooting himself in the foot. But, I'm totally not. I'm actually even more scared than before. (Not the least because, I never really viewed him as a strong candidate to begin with.) This is because of how reactionary the "party base" seems to be. The Tea Party faction, specifically, is so far to the right I don't think they can even see the center anymore. And in spite of what the pundits will say I remain convinced that the majority of the country is relatively moderate.

This is a good read for people interested in the dynamic that the Tea Party is creating in the Republican party. The Tea Party takes credit for the Republican surge in the House (because they did create a lot of enthusiasm) and as such the other party members are pandering to them. But, they really have no concept of how to lead; they are so new to everything. And, even more worrisome, they have no concept of compromise. This political system can't really function without compromise, give and take. But the Tea Partiers are blatantly unwilling to do that.

Look at Boehner's troubles. He got a compromise on the budget, and his base blasted him because he didn't get more cuts. Many of the Tea Party faction would rather the government shut down than give an inch. And, have you heard the term RINO? It means Republican in Name Only, which blatantly refers to moderate conservatives. It's like, you can't be a REAL Republican if you're moderate, if you're willing to concede some point to the other side- if you're reasonable. Hence the comic I made.

I find it dreadfully amusing that Paul Ryan's Medicare reform plan boils down to this: seniors will be given vouchers and subsidies to use in free-market exchanges for purchasing their own insurance. Sound familiar? That's because it is "the design for nonseniors found in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the health reform law passed by Democrats last year."

Uh huh. He's using one of Obamacare's main provisions. And conservatives LOVE his plan, but the same exact thing from the Democrats is "a government takeover." That's what gets me: clearly, they recognize the value of that system. But they can't say that, because that helps the other party out. Wouldn't it be so much better for the American people if BOTH parties had the guts to say, "You know what? The other guys have a good idea in X; let's combine that with our idea Y and really improve things."

Not that that will ever happen, of course. Because the reactionaries (and some Democrats) will viciously attack anyone who tries. Poor Mitt Romney- if there was someone on the Republican side for whom I could vote, it would be him, because he is reasonable and moderate. (Heck, I like Boehner infinitely more than any of the Republican front-runners.) But those very qualities mean he can't get the nomination (I'm talking his Romneycare thing, which I think was a good idea and could still work with tweaking. But since it's the "basis for Obamacare" no one on the right views it as an accomplishment anymore, only a failure.)

And because we have no give-and-take, only take (on both sides), we get things like Paul Ryan's budget which guts social programs. (How it is Christian to ignore the poor, the sick, the downtrodden, is beyond me...) And the PPACA which is significantly flawed because Pelosi et al were like "Our way or nothing, bucko!" (I blame Pelosi, not Obama, for the crappy bill.) If she had been willing to add some Republican ideas (tort reform) into it, it would be so much better. And if Ryan and his lot were to see that Democrats' concerns for the poor, elderly etc are valid and that some of their ideas have merit, we could have a balanced budget that everyone could live with. The lack of true conversation and compromise means so many amazing solutions are missed.

I'm convinced that only primary reform will do anything to help. WE NEED OPEN PRIMARIES, DESPERATELY. As it is, only registered Republicans can vote in the Republican primary, and so candidates take insanely far-right positions in order to appeal to them. This is especially true since the more extreme partisans are more likely to vote in primaries anyway. This is why really reactionary and radical people win the primary. If non-affiliated people can vote (independents), then candidates will have to moderate their views in order to garner votes. And moderated views=more ability to compromise. And a more accurate representation of what the American people actually think.

I think, too, that there is this vicious cycle going on that enforces this stubbornness. Like right now- Ryan's budget is too far to the right for me to even consider supporting it, which makes me lobby harder for the Dems. I don't like the Democrat plan any more than I used to, but since I know that if it doesn't pass that travesty of Ryan's will, I am determined to make sure that doesn't happen. The same dynamic probably applies on the right.

Okay, I have another solution- if the Tea Party becomes it's own party, and we get a radical left-wing party that will draw the extreme left- and right-wingers, then you have the more moderate, reasonable Democrats and Republicans left in those parties, and the government is much less volatile. The fringe beliefs will stay just that- fringe, and not be passed off as the mainstream view. So I think we need to have a third AND fourth party in this country.

I know I haven't posted in forever. My only excuse is APRIL. LOL. If you're in college you understand... exams and papers and interviews and GAH! *head explodes* So, yeah, sorry about that.

That's actually what I wanted to talk about today. When I'm talking to my mom, or Mike, or some other adult and they tell me something that's bothering them, I will say "Oh, I'm sorry." And I get a lot of "Why? It's not your fault"s in reply. But my friends all understand that I am using a "sympathy sorry," as I have dubbed it.

I was wondering about this phenomenon. Did people in my mom's day not say things like that? Does she not really get the concept of the sympathy sorry? No, she probably does. It's just that it's more commonly used in my generation, so it doesn't sound weird or even warrant any answer or thought most of the time. I think I've figured out why, too: instant messaging and texting. When you're IMing with someone and they tell you something to which you're not sure how to reply, you get "LOL" for a good piece of news and "sorry" for a bad piece for news. It's a default response, and although I've called it the "sympathy sorry" I have discovered that it actually expresses very little of that emotion. We use it to prevent honestly sympathizing with the other person, as a knee-jerk response. Like "I love you," we say "I'm sorry" far too often. And so it means less when we do say it.

If you stop and think about it, it is startling how little empathy we have in this society. Forums and comment boards are a prime example; disagreements are usually more along the lines of people jumping down each other's throats for the slightest fault and making personal attacks. They either don't understand that the person writing is a person just like them, with the same feelings, or they don't care. No one bothers to give anyone the benefit of the doubt; no one concedes that misspeaking happens or sometimes people word things wrongly. And sometimes people just flat-out disagree, and that is okay. They have a right to their opinion, and they probably have a very good reason for it. We just never pause and ask where the other person is coming from.

If you want an example, try this. A middle-school-aged girl commented that she was excited to see President Obama visit her school. And the adults on the forum immediately pounced on her for grammar and spelling. Admittedly, I'm a bit of a stickler for proper English too, but I think there are better ways to point out the faults than some of these people did. They generalized her one comment to all of her writing and THEN to all of her classmates and friends. Of course she is going to feel defensive. And she is thirteen- how many of you held your tongue perfectly at age 13? I know I didn't. People just didn't empathize with the girl (for the most part. Obviously, some people stuck up for her and restored my faith in humanity).

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