“It is sad not to love, but it is much sadder not to be able to love.”

- Miguel de Unamuno

I am engaged to an amazing woman and I grow a little more nervous and anxious the closer the big day approaches, (the same way I anticipated my birthday party as a child.)  I’m not foolish enough to think I know others’ hearts.  When my fiancée Samantha tells me she loves me I believe her partially because she’s so good to me, but mostly because she’s such an honest person.

I can’t say what others feel.  It seems we all spend so much time trying to figure out ourselves, and our own opinions. But I do know that even if I don’t know why others might fall in love, or how their passion makes itself known to them, I do not need to deny them their love in order to believe in my own.  My love will stand on its own. It doesn’t even demand that Samantha return it, as even if she stopped loving me, I know that I’d tragically be unable to stop loving her.

So the notion that any lovers must be denied as a legal matter, the idea that marriage or family or love itself must be defended because they cannot exist without laws, is ridiculous. The further idea that these laws must exclude, that they must be written to uphold some groups’ religious tenants in a country of religious freedom is even more absurd. Whatever your beliefs are, whatever type of love you claim, if it is not strong enough to hold true without a legal decree, then it is not real belief or love at all.

“I haven’t trusted polls since I read that 62% of women had affairs during their lunch hour. I’ve never met a woman in my life who would give up lunch for sex.”

- Erma Bombeck

The fluff that passes for political news these days most make the informed voter cringe.  The most difficult dilemma in trying to find some real information about the positions and plans of politicians is sifting through “Entertainment Tonight” style news articles like this.

As election season draws near, keep in mind that your goal should never be to ask, “How will others vote?”  how will you vote, and why?  Polls change for the most ridiculous reasons, but positions and arguments are as strong (or only as strong) as the principles and premises they’re based on.

“Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them.”

- Immanuel Kant

“The Puritan’s idea of hell is a place where everybody has to mind his own business.”

-Wendell Phillips

Criticism about someone’s performance is direct and honest.  Moral indignation related to personal matters is backhanded and often hypocritical.  Then there is a third type of criticism, one that’s rearing its ugly head right now: the attack against nothing.

Imagine this for a moment.  A newspaper claims that vanilla ice cream is more popular than chocolate based on a recent study.  You wonder why that is.  Are enough people allergic to chocolate to have an effect?  Where there a lot of different options  for different types of chocolate ice cream that ended up splitting the pro-chocolate vote?  Did the study ask people why they preferred certain flavors of ice cream over others?  With these questions in mind you write a letter to the editor asking why more people seem to prefer vanilla to chocolate.  The editor responds, “because more people voted for vanilla.”

There is always a danger with any medium that can self reference.  The danger is that discussion turns into meta-discussion, where the issues don’t matter and people’s opinions of the people discussing the issue becomes the new issue.  At that point the only healthy thing to do is ask, “What the hell are they even talking about anymore?”  I have my issues with the job that Governor Paterson is doing, but he doesn’t deserve this kind of vapid slander.  No one does.

“Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.“

- Yogi Berra

You may not know this, but to be an official party in New York state there’s a voting requirement.  You need 50,000 votes in the gubernatorial race to be an official party.  It’s very hard to get on the ballot if you’re not an official party. Does there appear to be a built in cycle here?

Now when you vote, does your vote count?  If the candidate wins by one vote, then yes.  Otherwise, sadly no.  That is, unless you help a third party to achieve a needed milestone.  The simple fact is, that a vote for a third party means your vote actually matters where it otherwise probably wouldn’t.

“I don’t like the income tax. Every time we talk about these taxes we get around to the idea of ‘from each according to his capacity and to each according to his needs’. That’s socialism. It’s written into the Communist Manifesto. Maybe we ought to see that every person who gets a tax return receives a copy of the Communist Manifesto with it so he can see what’s happening to him.”

- Thomas Coleman Andrews

I live in New York State.  Along with California, our state government is facing huge budget problems.  We have some of the nations highest taxation levels and growing unemployment.  Our state is depopulating as people move down south and out to the mid-west where taxes are lower, state government is smaller, the cost of living is cheaper and there are more jobs.   How then shall we solve the problem of overburdened taxpayers and businesses?  Cut costs and reduce the size of government perhaps?  No, how about a new tax on non-diet sodas instead?

By now it should be clear that Governor Paterson is in way over his head.  When Eliot Spitzer stepped down he was thrown into a position he just wasn’t prepared for.  The job of Lieutenant Governor is essentially that of an understudy.  Yes you preside over State Senate sessions, but the important task, the one that really requires and demands that you prepare for it, is that if something happens to the governor you need to be able to fill that role.  He obviously wasn’t ready, and his, “try something and hope it works,” policy will only leave us with policies that further cripple our state.

Though I do have one good thing to say about the plan.  Paterson’s newest political campaign spot sure is catchy.

“The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this.”

- Albert Einstei

As with the 21 age requirement for drinking this is an issue of self-ownership.  if the hypocrisy of such a law were the end of the story, then this issue would simply be another on a long list of laws that violate the very notion of individuals rights.  But there’s much more to the story of the war on drugs.

“When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.”

- Epitaph of Leonard P. Matlovich

Personal freedom means the right to live and love as you see fit.  it means being responsible for your own life, and being free to face the consequences of your choices whatever they are.  There’s a lot of argument about what causes homosexuality.  Is it something you learn?  Something you’re born into?  Is it a choice?

Perhaps the real question we should be asking is this: if homosexuality is a choice, why shouldn’t people be allowed to make that choice for themselves?  The clear answer is that they should be able to.  Another question on my mind is: Why do I have to choice between a party that seems bent using government to take away my property rights and a party bent on using government to restrict the rights of gays?  The clear answer is I don’t and neither do you.

“An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

You own yourself, don’t you?  When you turn 16 society permits you to drive on public roads.  When you turn 18 society permits you to vote for representation, to guide laws that you’ve already had to live under your whole life.  Then when you turn 21 society permits you to drink alcohol.

People may claim that this is justified, that you have no right to those roads because you do not yet pay taxes.  That you have no right to vote because you would not yet be held fully accountable for crimes you commit.  But there are a number of people who receive in government aid, far more than they pay in taxes (if they pay anything at all.)  Are they denied driver’s licenses?  And aren’t many minors often tried as adults for crimes?

So why have a minimum drinking age above that of legal adulthood?  This is not simply about access to a public works or the defense of needing some arbitrary line where society says you’re an adult (If it were, then why not make the drinking age 18?)  This is about having the right to do what you want with your own body.

“Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.”

- Tom Stoppard

It’s a simple question: If you can cast a vote for an office, why shouldn’t you be able to receive votes to hold that office?