Rant about Occupy Protests

The Requirements:

Stop criticizing. It says more about you than anything else.

Stop commanding knowledge! You’re ignorant like the rest of us.

Understand your unbelievably large amount of ignorance and welcome it with humility. You don’t know 99.999999999...% of what actually exists in a single one of your own brain cells, let alone an entire human brain and then an entire society made up of individual lives and decisions.

  

Stop using yourself as a one-man sample size for how the rest of the world should act. You don’t even understand your own brain and body, stop claiming to understand that of others.

An Application:

Accept that you don’t understand how the economy actually works, even economists don’t.

Accept that each person protesting is protesting for their own personal reason, and even if they were to explain it to you in a 300 page novel, you would still not fully comprehend the infinite number of individual events and circumstances that brought them there. You don’t know every individual and their reasons for being at the Occupy protests, so how in the world could you comment on the masses?

You probably have not even been to one of the protests, so how can you even comment on what they are like? Because of what someone else told you they were like?

Stop criticizing the man who doesn’t work 10 hours a day, and stop praising the ones who do. Stop pitying the woman who cannot pay her rent and stop critiquing the ones who can.

Why criticize someone who is protesting because he knows he probably won’t be able to command more than $100 a day for the rest of his life or admire the person who makes $1000 a day working the same 10 hours? Life is a bit deeper than your income level.

And even then, you have no idea why person x probably won’t make more than $100 a day, she could have stolen a bike at 14 years old and ended up going to jail because she had some weed on her, and now she can’t get a job because she has a record from getting into a fight in prison…and she doesn’t even smoke weed anymore!

Just accept that the world is more complex for you to try to make any real judgments on other people without decades of consistent research... and most research is eventually proven wrong!

My Own Ignorance:

If a skin cell on my forearm needed water, would a skin cell on my elbow look at it and say "I worked hard for my water, why can't you?"

It isn't about giveaways, it's about humility. Try driving your car without the mechanic who made it, yeah your so independent.

Sometimes helping people isn't what everyone needs!!!!

And stop thinking in this left-right binary...I'm not an ant, I have the capacity to understand things a bit more complicated than liberal vs. conservative.

Please, I was raised in the 90s with a good education, I wouldn't waste my resources believing that a two-party system with funding based on donations would actually ever get things done, let alone morally... why aren't we protesting that idiocy?

We want to feel like things are improving, but as soon as protesters start making a fuss about fixing stuff, why do people get mad?

That's probably why I want to go into education, there's more hope in that than waiting around for people with wealth or power to care about anything else besides themselves and possibly their immediate family. And why should I expect them to?

Happy Holidays!

... And don't worry! In 100 years our bodies will be just molecules in a plant or particles on a ray of light headed for another galaxy...!

Has the world outgrown Democracy?

Hearing with Isabel Castillo: Why our politicians need to open their minds

     From the Virginia Legislative Information System, HB 1465:


Admission of illegal aliens at institutions of higher education. Provides that notwithstanding any existing policies regarding limitations on enrollment eligibility, the boards of visitors of the public, post-secondary institutions of higher education, including the State Board of Community Colleges, shall adopt written policies and procedures prohibiting the enrollment of an individual determined to be not lawfully present in the United States.


     The man speaking in the center of the committee who questions Isabel Castillo, the woman speaking throughout the beginning of the video, is Todd Gilbert, a Republican politician from Virginia. His response to Isabel Castillo's plea against HB 1465 in January demonstrates a few issues that should be highlighted regarding the status of illegal immigrants and how this nation views the issue of immigrants in the education system. Although this video brings up more questions than answers it shows how our politicians on the state, municipal or even federal level, are not fully embracing the illegal immigration problem. This post was inspired by the NYTimes article: "Dream Act Advocate Turns Failure into Hope".
     The first point Todd makes that shows his lack of an open mind is "we do have a broken system, and your story... that just on an emotional level does not make sense to people like me who are very rigid in our beliefs on the immigration problem." 
     At what point do politicians believe that emotion is the reason for the necessity to help people like Isabel Castillo? Where does this politician get the impression that an emotional connection is what he should be making? If that is a byproduct of what Castillo is trying to say then so be it, but that is not the purpose. The purpose is that Isabel Castillo has the capacity to improve the community and the United States. The purpose is that she has the mental ambition and focus to help our economy and communities facing economic deterioration. This has nothing to do with emotion, and his source of "rigidity" in his perspective is unfounded. Her story has to do with common sense. This woman can become a community leader but because of our "broken system" she cannot use her strength to its full capacity... that sounds like underutilized resources to an economist. We must also ask why this politician thinks he can ever say the words "very rigid in my beliefs". Is his purpose to choose the better side of every story or to follow an ideology regardless of its broken application? The story does not make sense on an emotional level because that is not what the story is trying to do. But we continue...
     "When you mention a broken system, we agree that it is broken... but I think... most of us on our side of the debate feel that the government has to secure our borders so that we have a sovereign nation that has a rule of law before we can adequately address situations like yours. So maybe, what you and I, and folks on different sides of this issue can do, is try and work to find a way that we can satisfy some of our concerns and satisfy yours as well."
     Todd explains how "...we must first secure our borders so that we have a sovereign nation that has a rule of law before we can adequately address situations like yours..." Again we see a lack of connection between the proper issues. Isabel is already in the United States and has been here well before she became an adult, so that must be addressed first, because whether or not politicians on the side of Todd Gilbert believe, she has been an American long enough to get citizenship if the system was not so "broken". Therefore, if you follow my first line of reasoning, her words become an education issue, not an issue regarding the current influx of immigrants. A sovereign nation, in the independent and strong sense, is not a nation that deports people like Isabel who contribute to the competitiveness of our education system and economy and who have pride in this nation. Indeed, we cannot allow any and all hardworking people into the nation, but that is where this sense of a "broken immigration system" needs to be addressed, and not just by Isabel. 
     This is not an issue that she alone must promote, it is one that politicians like Todd Gilbert must also recognize are up to him, even more than up to her. Politicians on this committee have the influence that she lacks to slowly fix our education system, not to mention our immigration system. Giving this woman her necessary citizenship will help all those in power. Ensuring that amnesty is only given to those who make certain eligibility criteria (i.e. not guilty of any crimes, came before 16, wish to join either higher education or the military etc.), will help strengthen our education system and those workers with high potential. Instead of viewing this issue through a fixed lens, we must accept that each opinion is warranted, but it requires an open mind to distinguish between separate issues.
     Barack Obama stated in his "State of the Union" address that this nation allows thousands of international students into our higher education system but rejects many students who have been in our domestic public education system for decades. This breaks down in simple words why our nation needs to rethink our values and work together to make reality consistent with them. Luckily, HB 1465 was unable to pass according to this source. However, the growing number of anti-immigrant laws in our nation demonstrate that this issue will remain unless the Federal government takes action rather than simply speak. Moreover, the broken system Gilbert discusses is broken because of his rigid view of this complex issue. If more U.S. politicians viewed human society as a global network instead of simply a national network with external influences, perhaps they could appreciate the legitimacy of immigration.

Should police be allowed to search our phones without a warrant?

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40900143

     Recently, on January 3rd, the California Supreme Court decided that it was lawful for police to search our cell phones while we are in custody without a warrant. This decision does not uphold democratic rights and is a breach to more than just our privacy. The basis of this standpoint is that the law must recognize that police, as well as civilians, are not perfect citizens. Like anyone else, police fall victim to more than just curiosity, and as events already demonstrate, should not be allowed to overstep their boundaries because of a uniform. A cell phone found on an arrested person should not be searched without a warrant for many reasons. There should also be strict criteria in place that allow police to obtain a warrant for a search.
     A major flaw in the court's mentality is how they view cell phones. Instead of comparing a cell phone to a cigarette pack immediately on a person, it should be compared to a laptop computer. From businesspeople to politicians, cellphones have the ability to contain valuable or classified information that no police officer should have a lawful right to search without probable cause. A police officer is an enforcer of the law, and unless a warrant (which grants specific goals for why a search is necessary) is given, no person should be rightfully entrusted with this information. The same way the government abhors the actions of WikiLeaks in exposing valuable information, the same respect must be given to civilians.
     We already see a strong example of why police should not be able to search a cell phone without a strong and specific reason. On December 22nd, police who arrested a man searched his cell phone which contained explicit images of his girlfriend. The police officers involved passed around the images and humiliated not only the female involved, but their professional title and law enforcement in general. This example is a clear demonstration that police officers cannot be given any more trust than a civilian. Demanding a warrant is not in any way asking too much of law enforcement and will still allow any incriminating evidence to be found. Police officers pulling a person over for speeding does not directly relate to their cell phone and this piece of property should not be searched any more than their home.
     It is unlawful for police officers to feel they have a right to search through our property for one crime in order to find us guilty of others. In the case of a drug dealer, when a phone is obtained, police must first appeal for a warrant when the defendant is in custody. Only then should the phone be searched, and any incriminating evidence that does not relate to his drug arrest cannot be used in the court of law. Our cell phones are slowly becoming our personal computers. Who is to say that these police will not begin to search applications such as Facebook or Twitter for things entirely unrelated to our arrest? These police have no right to search through our phones unless there is some specific reason to incline them to do so. Our politicians and judges must recognize this injustice and accept that we all deserve our right to privacy supported specifically in the Constitution.