Reflection on my blog thus far...

Well, my original goal was to set out to start a blog for this class and hope that I could find some really good material from which to work with. By material, I mean anything that I found interesting over the semester that suits my interests politically and something that maybe I just have an opinion towards.

What it turned into was something I didn't initially. After this writing, I plan on posting my blog on facebook and sending the link to my families. I really like the idea of a blog. Not only is it a place to vent, but I really think that writing on a regular basis will help to improve me as a writer and as an debater. I also plan to freelance write or write a novel at some point in my life, so using this as an early reference point to what I was like near the end of my college years can serve as a practical example of how much I have improved and what still needs working on. I aim to be perfect, but believe that perfect is undefinable. I just want my work to shine, to really make sense, and really, through this blog, make an impact.

Essay arguing for the abolition of Don't Ask Don't Tell

Below is an essay I wrote, and an update to my very first blogpost, reporting on my feelings of repealing DADT.



Repealing ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’

$200 million dollars is the amount the United States Army spent on creating and instituting the ‘Army Strong’ campaign to recruit new enlistees (Keshin). So why is the military excluding potentially tens of thousands of recruits if it so desperately needs people to enlist in the military? The group being excluded is one that is able-bodied and willing to fight for their nation, no matter how bigoted laws are against them in the U.S. Gays have been disallowed from being open about their sexual orientation in the military for seventeen years, and because of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy created by the Clinton administration, two gay people are kicked out of the military every single day because of their orientation (Jones). It is time for a change; this arcane policy needs to repealed immediately and gay and lesbian people need to be treated as equals in the military, and allowed to be open about their sexual orientation.
Increasingly, nations around the world are accepting gays and lesbians openly into their military forces. Considering the amount of worry and money spent on homeland security in the United States, it makes one scratch their heads as to why anyone without a substantial criminal record or medical issue would be barred from joining the armed forces. Currently, there are twenty-five confirmed nations that support the permission of gays and lesbians to serve in their militaries, including most recently Germany and Uruguay (Palm Center). If the United States is supposed to lead the world as a progressive nation, they certainly are failing at that attempt with this policy. Inherent discrimination against something biologically determined is a bigoted statute that should be addressed immediately.
According to a recently constructed Pentagon survey “of active-duty forces and their families, the majority do not care if gay men and women serve openly” (Bumiller). Now, certainly not everyone will ever agree on this issue. I served in the military and there are some bigoted soldiers, but there are just as many open-minded soldiers as well. There were people in my unit who were racist, but that certainly does not mean that only whites or only blacks should serve just because other soldiers may be uncomfortable serving alongside someone of another color. If in fact this where the case, the soldier who felt uncomfortable about such an arbitrary thing should be the one dismissed. Alas, over 13,000 soldiers since the conception of this law have been discharged for ‘coming out’ or for their commanding officers or fellow soldiers discovering the true sexual orientation of the soldiers (Keshin). Even though most soldiers have displayed via this survey that they are comfortable with gays serving alongside them, this ‘rule’ continues to discourage gays from joining, and discourage gays from even being themselves in the military. If they cannot be open and honest with those whose lives they must depend on, especially in a era of the two longest wars in modern American history, then there is something more seriously wrong with the military.
An interesting annotation about this issue is it appears that a growing number of elected officials are in favor of repealing the issue. Representative Alcee Hastings of Florida sent a letter to President Barack Obama in June of 2010 that was “endorsed by more than seventy-five members of Congress [that urged] a suspension in investigations and discharges because of ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’” (Keshin). The issue has been put into a defense bill that is set to be looked at by the U.S. Senate, and was actually repealed in federal court until the U.S. Justice Department stepped in an asked the courts to wait on overturning the policy because it was a matter that should not be decided judicially, but rather by the Pentagon and the military themselves. Bureaucracy has prevented our nation from repealing this policy, and as a result homeland security is suffering, albeit on a small scale but a scale nonetheless, and is stymieing recruitment of men and women willing to serve in the military. Robert Gates, the Bush and Obama Secretary of Defense, has recently come out urging Congress to repeal the law so the courts do not have to, thus saving the taxpayers potentially millions of dollars that would otherwise be spent fighting the issue in the judicial system.
“Twenty percent of gay vets who left the military said they would have stayed if they could have served openly…that means one in five who’ve left could potentially be interested in coming back” (Conant). Not only would recruitment open up to all gays and lesbians, but soldiers with experience might be willing to return to serve the country. According to a think tank at UCLA, the Williams Institute, the “U.S. Armed Forces spend about $22,000 to $43,000 to replace each individual discharged under DADT” (Conant). Taxpayers’ dollars, an issue so contested that the lame duck Congressional Republicans are vowing to disregard any bill until the tax issue is frontloaded, are being wasted discharging perfectly fine soldiers because of sexual orientation. Even fiscal conservatives, now matter how bigoted they may or may not be, have got to argue that this policy is outdated and trite. If even the lowest amount, $22,000, was spent on each individual discharged under the policy, that would accrue to $286 million for the estimated 13,000 soldiers discharged under the policy. This is essentially the minimum cost taxpayers have taken on to get rid of able-bodied gay soldiers in the military because of DADT.
‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is a policy that was effectively enacted to eliminate the potential for discrimination against gays in the military. The one problem with this is that the policy is inherently discriminatory in its nature. And it continues to only allow for more discrimination. Gays and lesbians are no different from any other sexual orientation, especially in their ability to fight and serve for the United States Armed Forces. At a time when we need as many soldiers as possible to help fight and solve two wars in the Middle East, we need to be accepting and open to all those who want to serve their nation, regardless of sexual orientation. Joseph Rocha, a former military bomb handler became an outcast and was ridiculed by fellow soldiers to a point that he was locked in a dog kennel and forced to eat dog food. If DADT was repealed, however, he wants to serve again. “You never lose that sense of duty and service and love for country…it’s a unique and beautiful thing most of us feel we were robbed of and would take the first chance to have it back” (Conant). Let us end this discrimination and give Rocha a chance to serve openly for the first time, so soldiers like him that are passionate about duty and honor can once again serve openly and freely in the United States armed forces.















Works Cited
Bumiller, Elisabeth. "Pentagon Finds Little Risk in Don't Ask Don't Tell Repeal - NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2010. .

Conant, Eve. "Gay Vets Who Want to Return to the Military - Newsweek." Newsweek - National News, World News, Business, Health, Technology, Entertainment, and more - Newsweek. N.p., 27 Sept. 2010. Web. 2 Dec. 2010. .

Jones, Michael A.. "Every 24 Hours, Two Gay People are Kicked Out of the Military | Gay Rights | Change.org." Gay Rights | Change.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2010. .

Keshin, Eric. "United for Peace & Justice : With whom does the Army hold its current advertising contract?." United for Peace & Justice Index. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2010. .

"Nations allowing gays to serve openly in military | Palm Center." Palm Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Dec. 2010. .

The Individual Mandate Health Law...

Recently, as NPR has written, U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson struck down the individual mandated health care in Obama's health-care law. The law requires that all individuals get health insurance. There are a few paradoxes here, though, as this was the only part of the law the judge ruled unconstitutional. As a result, with insurers required to take patients with pre-existing conditions starting in 2014, this could essentially mean that if the law stays in tact with the exception of the individual mandate, people can just buy health insurance when they get sick. Now, normally I would have a problem with this because it means it would affect the busineses. The businesses here are, however, health insurance companies. And I am one to believe that pretty much all health insurance companies are crooked and scammers, and honestly quite ruthless and without an ounce of empathy. They will turn down claims because of some of the most arbitrary decisions. Michael Moore's fascinating documentary on the health care system, Sicko, highlights these points and more.

I do believe, though, that more needs to be done now. It certainly isn't fair to these companies that people can just purchase insurance when they become sick, and it will certainly hurt the wallets of those who are already insured and keep their insurance. This law was created to safeguard the private insurers and the American public together. Unfortunately, with this law deemed unconstitutional, either the health care law gets rewritten, or we demolish the system and create public healthcare and eliminate private insurers. Now, we all know how receptive this country is to big government and socialism, so the latter option is essentially off the table for at least another decade. So we are stuck with the first option. We must rewrite the law, or somehow find a loophole to demand that everyone purchases health insurance. No one will be pleased, and no one really seems too pleased as it is with the healthcare law. Too many earmarks and too much bureacracy prevented this law from possessing the benefits it could have given. So, while I believe that we should have public healthcare, and it should be taken from our taxes, we are stuck with either the current healthcare bill with individual mandates to purchase from a private insurer, or we eliminate the pre-existing condition exceptions that begin in a few years. Either way, not everyone will be delighted with the outcome.

Dreaming of passage of the DREAM Act

The DREAM Act, the hotly contested act that is waiting to be looked at on the Senate floor, would provide a pathway to citizenship for those who enter the country illegally under the age of 16, and have lived in the U.S. for five years. I don't even understand why anyone would be against this. These kids, and now some adults, were rasied in their formative years in this country, are inherently naturalized citizens, and often times don't speak any language but English fluently, but are still considered illegal immigrants because of the arbitrary birthplace of their parents or families.

It is only smart to provide a pathway to citizenship for these folks. Critics may argue that this will just allow for illegal immigrants to bring their kids into the U.S. and wait five years until they're afforded a pathway, then they can themselves find it easier to stay in the U.S., but really all the DREAM Act does is allow those who would follow under the DERAM Act to stay for six years, and then must either have completely two years of college or the military. These are pretty tough stipulations for one to live in the United States, and many Americans themselves don't even accomplish that much for their, or any, country. Although opening up borders is impractical, it is only sensible to allow those who had no decision to enter the U.S., but have stayed here and been somewhat successful, an opportunity to become a citizen, because after all, we were all immigrants once upon a time.

Wikileaks: Redux

I wanted to revisit my last post concerning Wikileaks. I actually posted my blog on the role of Wikileaks the morning of the day Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, posted the tens of thousands of cables of classified documents. I actually posted the blog without the knowledge of the cable leak, because I wanted to touch on the thousands of documents that were released earlier this fall.

Assange, who recently turned himself into London jail because of the warrant for his arrest for alledged rape charges in Sweden, is pretty much in every headline on every world media circuit right now. One would be hard-pressed to not be familiar with his name or his website, Wikileaks.

I have been rather torn lately in regards to my support of Wikileaks. As stated in my previous blog, I am fully behind releasing these classified documents for the public to see because it provides for transparency of our government, which is neccesary as a citizen of the United States to know one's native country's foreign policy. I think the role of Wikileaks is vastly important, it helps serve as a watchdog organization and they also did something that may not had originally been intended: the release of these cables has spurned the Pentagon into action to tighten security. If Wikileaks can get a hold of this classified information, who knows who can get a hold of much other, perhaps more pertinent information. Although the security exploit may have just been whistleblowers inside the government, this also shows that really not many can be trusted. However hypocritical this may sound, while I believe in transparency of government, there are also certain things that the general public should probably not know, essentially because there are some things that directly affect national security.

While I agree with the release of the vast majority of the cables I have seen and read so far, particularly with the cables in regards to our debt owed to China and with Iran's nuclear proliferation, there are some I wish Assange and Wikileaks had used more discretion with in regards to national security. What I am referring to is the release of documents establishing where the United States keeps minerals that are pertinent to trade and any potential "apocalypse" scenario, in addition to documents stating hotspots for terrorist targets. There's obviously a bevy of these secrets out there now, and all our government can do now is tighten security, but I do wish that more discretion was used on the part of Wikileaks before releasing these documents. In spite of that, if their role is to release all documents, regardless of how vulnerable they may make the United States, then that is a different story. If Wikileaks is anti-censorship, then that can be understandable. As it is, it does not seem they are inherently against censoring these cables, so they need to know that what they are releasing will assuredly not affect the lives of innocents, which is more important than any cable allowing transparency.

The Atlantic did a terrific rundown on the media's favoritism and anti-Wikileaks bantor throughout the internet that can be had right here for your reading pleasure.

The Bush tax cuts...keep 'em?

As the Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire at the end of the month, Democrats and Republicans are finally coming to a consensus, if you want to call it that, as they plan on extending the tax cuts at least for the following year. Democrats are understandably irked that the top 2-3% wealthiest of Americans still benefit from these tax cuts, thus denying the Fed $60 billion, but also will extend unemployment benefits for millions of Americans which would be set to expire. To top it off, the extension of the cuts would save middle-class Americans about $1,000 a year each, which is certainly necessary given the current economic recession.

Obviously, in an ideal liberal society, the wealthiest of Americans would not get tax cut extensions, and middle class families would still get tax cuts, and unemployment benefits would continue. It is highly doubtful this scenario would play out until the next election, about two years from now, given that the Republicans are set to take over the House, and they are certainly pro-tax cuts for all individuals.

Although the tax cuts for the wealthy are difficult for liberals and people like me to swallow, I think extending the unemployment benefits and saving middle class families around the country is a good give-and-take for bipartisanship, and for the economy. If an extra $1,000 was taken off middle class families salaries, our economy would certainly see that, given there are tens of millions of middle class families this would affect. Unemployment recently rose in November, so extending these benefits is crucial to keep families afloat in such difficult times. So, while extending the cuts for the wealthy seems unacceptable, the cuts continue for the Americans who need it the most, and we must suck it up and accept that until the next elections roll around, and hopefully our president's message of change can take full effect.

Iran: Will diplomacy work?

According to Wikileaks released cables, many Middle Eastern countries want the United States to do something about Iran's nuclear proliferation program. Considering that just yesterday, Iran announced that they have everything they need to create a nuclear weapon, one would think we should do something about this...just like we did with Iraq, right?

Well, we are all witnessing how the Iraq conflict played out and is playing out still currently. Unfortunately, a preliminary attack like some Arab nations alledgely support, would not be the best solution. Much like the current North Korea situation, we should use diplomacy and talks by heads of state and the Cabinets of nations involved to see how we may stall this process or eliminate. While it is hypocritical to stop a country from nuclear proliferation when we in the U.S. have thousands of nuclear weapons, there is no reason for any nation to have them. While in a pragmatic sense this is just seemingly silly, everyone must agree that nuclear weapons are inherently bad for society. If we could perhaps create a treaty with Iran, much like the SMART treaty with Russia currently on board, we must secede nuclear weapons and destroy them so Iran can feel comfortable, and we must also adit that peace is the answer, and hopefully sign a treaty that will establish positive relations with Iran, regardless of their human rights violations (and ours), this issue must be addressed imminently.

Are you still drinking out of plastic water bottles?

If your answer to this question is Yes, then you should entertain the option to stop. Plastic, that oh so cheap substance that is virtually in everything we buy and consume, is not good for you, not good for our planet, and nonrenewable. There are a plethora of options available for plastic bottle alternatives: Sigg bottles, Kleen Kanteen, Camelbak, Nalgene, and many other companies all sell reusable water bottles from $10 - $50 (depending on size, brand, style). And they are all free of BPA.

BPA, Bisphenol A, "is an endocrine disruptor, which can mimic the body's own hormones and may lead to negative health effects." Last year, The Endocrine Society published a study laying out the potential negative effects of BPA on humans, especially growing children. BPA is in nearly every plastic available, and when one drinks out of plastic water bottles, they are directly consuming BPA. Most water bottles are also packaged in PET, Polyethylene terephthalate, which makes up 1% of the United States' waste, and is currently recycled at less than a 25% rate.

If the health effects of BPA aren't enough to dissuade you, think about the waste. Oil, what plastic comes from, is a nonrenewable resource. The water in the water bottles has to come from somewhere too. Taking water from natural ecosystems is obviously abhorrent, but the fact that companies even have a right to water sources that should be intended for people in those areas is another. Where do property lines end?

Finally, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It is riddled with plastic water bottles, and plastic waste. It is a "gyre of marine litter" that equates to the size of Texas that just floats in the middle of the Pacific, accumulating trash and essentially unstoppable and uncontrollable. If we stopped our plastic bottle usage, we could greatly reduce the chances of furthering the size of this garbage patch, and hopefully with more eliminated plastic usage, we can find a way to stop the patch from growing, and becoming a problem for those who live on islands in the Pacific.

Those pesky 42 Republicans

Recently, the 42 Republican Senators in the United States vowed to neglect and vote against any bill during the lameduck Congress because the Bush tax cut issue has yet to have been addressed. Although I do agree this issue needs to be addressed imminently, as they expire in one month, to simply ignore any bill that comes their way is unacceptable and negligent. The United States citizens have voted these folks in to pay attention to, and vote on, these very bills. But since they are not getting their way with Obama and the Congressional Democrats, they are pulling this stunt.

This is not democracy. This is borderline fascism. They are exercising their power to...do nothing. Now, fortunately the Republicans agreed to address the new START treaty that would essentially sign a pact with Russia to eliminate a number of nuclear weapons and to reduce nuclear proliferation. Unfortunately, this is not the only issue that needs addressing in the Senate. Anything that truly comes before the Senate, which likely took many years to get there, deserves just as much attention as the START treaty, and simply ignoring it to get their way with the tax-cut issue is not a solution. If the Democrats had done this to the Republicans, I would feel the same way, and the liberal media would be in an absolute uproar. As it is, the Republicans are just fine sitting on their fannies until the tax-cut issue is frontloaded. So why are we paying these Senators to do nothing? Impeach, or move forward with the bills presented.

Why I support Lebron James

Lebron James is arguably the best player the NBA has to offer. The NBA, the United States' most dynamic and popular sport internationally, is obviously a pretty big deal. When Lebron James chose to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers after several attempts at winning championships, he upset a lot of fans in Cleveland, and especially the owner of the team Dan Gilbert. I can understand the anger towards his departure from a standpoint of a Clevelandite. But to spread hateful speech about him and stage a burning of his jerseys is a bit too much.

Lebron left Cleveland for the sunny beaches of Miami to play with his two good friends who he also happened to win gold medals with in 2008 in the Olympics in China. The reasons he left are the reasons I still support him fully: he left to win. No matter who you are a fan of, you have to appreciate an athlete who wants to win, and tries his hardest to win. Compounded with this, he took a very large paycut to play in Miami. The best player in one of the most popular sports in the world took a paycut to play in Miami. He also chose Miami to play with his friends. I can fully respect this. If I had an opportunity to play with two of my closest friends, and it was in Miami, and they were such great ballplayers that it would immediately give me contention for an NBA Finals championship, I would jump at the opportunity. So although Clevelandites may boo Lebron tomorrow when he returns to Cleveland for the first time as a member of the Heat, I think they should still respect the decision of a guy who really is just a man who wanted to win, and win with his friends.