politics

This video is very funny, but also very sad at the same time, that people can still think this way.

Anyone who reads both my blog and Aaron at two or three . net will know that we're pretty much at opposite ends of the political spectrum. I'm very much a liberal, and he's a self-described conservative. But his post today entitled "What is compassion?" echos a lot of what I've been saying and thinking. Now, I'm not calling Aaron a liberal.

Brandon at a badchristian blog has written an interesting post on identities. He writes about boxes and labels being used as a shortcut for thinking. It's a common enough thought, but he has what I found to be an intersesting twist on it. It's not so much the boxes and labels we put on others that concerns him, but the boxes and labels we put on ourselves.

The Carpetbagger Report » Blog Archive » The 'Pledge Protection Act'

I've signed the petition below. We as Americans have no business trying to claim any sort of "moral high ground" while we maintain a prison camp that seems to me to be clearly immoral, if not outright illegal.

Rapid Response: Tell Bush: "End America's Shame - Close Guantanamo NOW! | CrossLeft
We join the National Council of Churches and people of faith and conscience everywhere to urgently call for the United States to close its Guantanamo Bay detention facility without delay.

OK. I know that President Bush's command of the English language isn't exactly superb, but does this make any sense?

This video is featured very prominently on the Defend DeLay website. Now, I have very little respect for Mr. DeLay, but I would at least have assumed that someone who had reached the powerful position that he had in the US government would have the ability to recognise sarcasm when he saw it.Apparently not.

HT: The Carpetbagger's Report

Alan over at A Different Perspective calls for people to "please get upset" about the NSA's data mining of the phone records of millions of Americans. And I agree, we should be upset. Anyone who's read my blog will know that I'm an advocate of privacy. But I have to admit that I reacted more with apathy than indignation at the recent announcement.

Then I found out about the Washington Post-ABC News Poll which basically shows that 2 out of 3 Americans support this sort of privacy invasion, if it results in more security.

Now, I have a problem with the structure of the survey, which implies an inverse correlation between privacy and security. I don't think that relationship has been established. But, be that as it may, the results are what they are. A strong majority of Americans favor giving up some degree of privacy in exchange for an increased feeling of security. Am I wrong to see a problem with this?

On Friday, President Bush declared today, May 1, 2006, as both Law Day and Loyalty Day. My first reaction on reading the Law Day declaration was to be amazed at the audacity of the man.

Wendy and I have been talking about the immigration controversy that's been raging recently. We both agree that the debate over guest workers vs border security really misses the point. By and large, people don't come here because they want to have their lives uprooted and their families split apart. They come because they have no choice. Addressing the root causes of economic disparity is a permanent solution, rather than the temporary patches represented in most debates.