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Is Life Sacred?

November 9, 2009 in Anarchism/Politics with 1 Comment

I am quite baffled lately by the number of individuals who claim to think in a rational manner, yet are not bothered by their severe cognitive dissonance.

Such individuals will make the claim that abortion is wrong on the grounds that life is sacred, and then turn around and support the death penalty. If the taking of anything resembling life (e.g. a fetus) in any case (e.g. the mother will die if it is not aborted) is wrong, then why is capital punishment okay?

This statement, in particular, troubled me:

Agreed…that is what is wrong with our legal system, we know they did it, just kill them already. Insane? who cares, they won’t be productive citizens anyway so why keep them alive in a prison for 40yrs?

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Gay Marriage

November 6, 2009 in Anarchism/Politics, Sexuality, Thoughts on Life with 0 Comments

As time goes on, it seems a number of people are finally conceding to the idea that gays should be allowed to have equal legal rights regarding partnerships as heterosexual couples. This is definitely a step forward from the (unfortunately, still prevalent) dark age idea that homosexual relationships simply do not work, are unnatural, or are damaging to families. It is argued that gays do not honour commitment in relationships, yet everywhere I look, I see gay couples who have been together 12, 20, 40 years. Sure, there are plenty of gays who have “one nighters” or short term relationships, but how is that *any* different in the heterosexual population? If the public perception indicates that gays do not have long-term relationships, it is only because that same public is hostile enough that it either drives apart those relationships or forces them out of the public view.

Even with the progress which has been made in this arena, we still have a number of bigots insisting that, even with full equal rights, we assign a name such as “domestic partnership” or something equally ridiculous to a legally-bound homosexual relationship. The argument is that marriage is a traditional institution between a man and a woman, and usually this argument is accompanied by a phrase such as: “. . .and I’ll be damned if these f**king neo-liberals corrupt the word to fit their agenda!”

These same bigots would likely have said, a number of years ago: “sure, women should have equal say in electing officials, but traditionally, voting is a relationship between a man and his government. When a woman does it, it needs to have a different name.”

I won’t even go into the fact that historically, marriage didn’t just refer to a union between a man and a woman, but that this union was also restricted to people of the same race, religion, and social class. I’m sure there is a “perfectly rational” justification why marriage between a same-sex couple is not okay, whereas marriage between a Buddhist and a Jew is, right?

A cursory glance at history will show that the policy of “separate but not equal” simply doesn’t work. Why are we treating marriage like it is a magical exception to this rule?

The Problems of Capitalism

April 17, 2009 in Anarchism/Politics with 0 Comments

In response to a recent Slashdot poll regarding the “best” system of taxes, a few comments arose questioning capitalism altogether. Those in favour of capitalism made various arguments that anarchism could not work, and some anarchists explained why it could, and even pointed out that they lived in an anarchist cooperative which has been flourishing for some 20 years.

This particular topic is very interesting to me, so I decided I would do an entry explaining my views on capitalism.

I’d like to start by defining the terms we will be using. Please keep these definitions in mind throughout the essay.

Capitalism – A system of trade in which the goal is for an individual to maximize his or her wealth through maximum profit. Capitalists claim that not all people are equal — that some are smarter, stronger, funnier, etc, and should use these natural talents to acquire wealth and thus maximize their survival and comfort. It is argued that doing so elevates society in the form of new technology and ideas. Hierarchy is inherently a part of capitalism.

Anarchism – The absence of hierarchy. Anarchism is often thought to represent lawlessness and chaos, but I would argue that this is not true. Anarchists advocate grassroots planning, horizontal decision making, and organization. The post office is an excellent example of how an anarchist society could operate: a series of independent autonomous collectives cooperating with each other.

First, I will defend the fact that hierarchy is inherent in capitalism and that this same hierarchy is, in every case, bad. Because capitalism is concerned with maximizing profit, we will look at the typical exchange in a capitalist market:

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Time Warner Delays Tiered Pricing

April 16, 2009 in Anarchism/Politics with 0 Comments

According to a Time Warner press release issued today, as well as local news sources, Time Warner will not be moving forward on their tiered pricing plan at the moment.

This may sound like a good thing, but there are a few aspects of this issue to consider, which I’ll address in this post. Namely, one should be aware of the facts, and not let oneself be pacified by this delay (or anything else) so as to prevent a smaller response, and thus Time Warner’s success, when they try this again. Now is the time to be on guard more than ever!

First, I’d like to start by saying that I am 100% against the so-called “tiered pricing” Time Warner has been proposing to adopt in various locations. Being a nearly lifelong resident of the Greater Rochester Area, I know that there are not many alternatives for consumer high speed internet. That is to say, Time Warner (aka “Road Runner”) has a monopoly of sorts, which they are abusing. Sure, there’s Frontier, but I have used them off and on in the past, and indeed am currently using them, and can say without hesitation that they are both slow and unreliable. Not to mention that Frontier has been considering their own usage cap, at 5 GB a month. There are other services as well, but to get at least the same speed/reliability offered by Road Runner without having to pay for T1 or better, is difficult in areas where Time Warner operates.

Now, let’s analyze Time Warner’s claims and the implications thereof. Time Warner’s official propaganda is twofold. First, they have made claims about their infrastructure being overloaded due to people “overusing” the connections they paid for. Second, they claim they want to save customers money by making you “only” have to pay for what you use, thus providing some relief to poor grandma who lives off her meager social security check and can’t afford to eat and have email at the same time, while punishing those pesky movie “thieves.” Sounds great, huh?

I recall a time in middle school where a chocolate bar company wanted us to sell their product door to door as a fundraising effort for the school. The man explaining how the fundraising would work said he was going to let us in on a little secret to help us sell more chocolate and thus get bigger prizes. He told us that in order to get a customer to really buy into what you’re saying, no matter how badly you’re ripping them off, just drop the words “free” and “save.”

Time Warner’s plan does not actually “save” anybody money. They will be charging essentially the same amount for a vastly reduced data transfer limit. Here is the pricing tier they were proposing: Continue Reading…