I'm opinionated

Here are a few of mine. Read at your own risk.

I believe that a fertilized egg is a potential human life, and whether it lives or dies is not up to me. I cannot imagine ever having an abortion, and I hope I'm never put in that position. That being said, I firmly believe that abortions should NOT be illegal. Historically, when abortion was illegal, the AMA decided to push for its legalization because it was a health issue - women were dying from infections, complications, etc. due to "back alley" abortions performed by unqualified practicioners. I believe that a woman who has been raped should not be forced to carry a child as a result of that rape - while I doubt a day would go by that she would not remember the rape in the next 9 months, there is no reason to make that memory a physical fact. I believe that if you are against abortion, you should be standing up and screaming for better, more available birth control. If people that don't want to get pregnant don't get pregnant, the number of abortions will go down dramatically, DUH. OH - and for god's sake, EDUCATE YOUR CHILDREN. It never ceases to amaze me in today's day and age of information availability what some of the misconceptions about sex are. Yes, you can get pregnant while you are on your period. Yes, you can get pregnant if you have never had a period before. Yes, you can get pregnant if he pulls out. I can't even remember some of the stupider ones; my brain has blocked them out for self-preservation. I'd start getting trigger happy if I were surrounded by that much idiocy. I think I'm going to make a bumpersticker that says "YOU CANNOT LEGISLATE MORALITY"

I believe that 'creationism' and 'evolution' are not incompatible. I think people that interpret the bible literally are doofuses (and that's being polite). I personally don't believe that Genesis says HOW God created the earth - it says he did, and briefly mentions how long it took him. (About that, by the way: the Hebrew word translated as "day" is yom, which can mean "a length of time" as well as a "day".) Anyway, I consider anybody who argues that God did NOT use evolution to create everything is a raging egomaniac. How dare they presume to know the methods of God? They weren't there! And, if you want to get spiritual about it, doesn't the enormous complexity of evolution make the existence of God more believable? And as for what gets taught in schools - oh, give me a break. We don't teach religion in school (unless it's a religious private school, like the one I went to) and creationism is religion. Would Christians like us to also teach that the world was created when the Divine Turtle rose out of the primordial ocean with mud on its back? That too is a creation story. If you argue that evolution is 'just a theory' then you need to understand the meaning of the word 'theory' when used scientifically. There's a whole hell of a lot of data, found independently by many people over many years, that supports the idea of the process of evolution. Scientists are not out to destroy religion. I know a lot of scientists with very strong faith. A lot of them actually consider what they do to be somewhat spiritual, as they look at it as learning about God's creation - and they understand that science has nothing to do with faith, and that the existence of God is not the purview of science. So why can't religious fundamentalists understand that?

I believe that drugs should be legalized. Dammit, people, haven't you ever heard that saying about not learning from history and being doomed to repeat it? Look at Prohibition! It was widely ignored, and its existence helped organize crime take hold in the United States. I need to track it down again, but I once read about a study that said if a percentage of the population wants to do a certain act, then making it illegal is pointless because it will not dissuade people from doing it. Make drugs legal! Then regulate them. That eliminates people having trouble because the coke they bought was cut with rat poison. Tax drug sales. Think of the revenue! And then use some of that revenue to fund rehabilitation programs and education programs. Legalization eliminates the black-market demand, thus lowering the price of drugs, and eliminating the need for violence in the distribution system. This also eliminates the incredible amount of money this country is wasting on the "War on Drugs" both at home and abroad. This would allow other poor countries that currently produce a lot of the current drugs (Afghanistan, Columbia) to develop in a more free-market way, and would hopefully end the rule of armed despots in those countries as well. After all - nicotine and alcohol are chemical substances that affect the body, just like cocaine, meth, etc - why should those two be legal, and all others not? Because we grow tobacco & grain here in the US? I wonder if drug dealers paid as much money into our Congress as the Tobacco lobbyists do, if legalization would be heard more often.

Our policy on Cuba is stupid. Look at the USSR: we refused to interact with them - they endured. We open up our markets, culture, etc. - and bam! They open up. Think of Cuba as a battered wife to Fidel, the abusive husband. We're basically trying to keep her isolated from everybody else, providing only the most basic of necessities (and sometimes not even that) and yelling at her to leave her awful husband. Well, hell, it's not like you've shown her a better alternative! Take her out, show her how caring people interact with her, show her what she's missing - give her the means to leave, and don't you think it's much more likely that she will?

Illegal immigrants - the phrase should be retired. I think we should open our borders completely. You wanna come work in the US? Fine! Great! We'll pay you and take Social Security & all other taxes out of your pay. If you're willing to do for $8/hr what another worker is unwilling to do for less than $30, then I don't blame the employer for wanting to hire you. Let's just make sure the employer does it above the table, rather than under the table, as is common now. Come on in and work! And unions - consider this a huge influx of potential members. Decent working conditions, fair wages, etc. should be universal. Companies that remain in the US can even get tax breaks, or something. (Let's just please close all the damn tax loopholes that so many of them are currently jumping through, okay?) Looking around the world today, I'm anticipating a huge crash when things start to equalize - a person in Detroit making automobiles is paid a whopping amount compared to what a person in, say, Korea is. We are all interconnected, and at some point our pay and standard of living is going to have to come closer to other countries' pay and standard of living - and wouldn't you rather attempt to bring their levels closer up to ours, rather than ours crashing down to theirs? Make it a requirement that American countries have to pay a decent minimum wage to employees regardless of where those employees are (Alabama or Thailand) and that companies on foreign soil that an american company buys from must pay a decent minimum wage and provide a safe working environment.

As I've drifted into economy, here's a pet peeve: People, learn to boycott. If you don't like what a company is doing, DON'T BUY FROM THEM. They pay attention to you when you cease handing them money. I know it may make your life a little inconvenient or complicated, but that extra time you take shopping could be saving a little foriegn child from slave labor.

I think our dependence on fossil fuels is awful. I think the government should be encouraging conservation in all areas - giving tax breaks to companies that build 'green' buildings, or energy/water efficient fixtures... Build your houses with solar panels! Use grey water reclamation systems! Got a big factory? Plant stuff on the roof! Use recycled materials! Give tax breaks to people who use biodiesel cars! Give tax breaks to car companies that design more fuel efficient vehicles! As a government, the only way to encourage behaviour is by the reward system.

Education - my god, don't get me started. It's 2:30 am. I'll finish this another time.