Wednesday, June 29, 2016

My thoughts on Brexit



I haven’t really said anything about the Brexit vote because I’m an American who hadn’t really heard of it until a couple of weeks before it happened and I only know about certain issues that the people I follow have talked about.  But my overall feeling right now is that if there is a second vote – which it seems enough people are calling for so it probably should happen – the results will most likely be flipped.  Settling the matter once and for all.

Just kidding.

One of the Brexit issues I heard about is something I’ve also heard here in America about people not wanting other people hundreds of miles away from them making laws that the first group of people don’t agree with but still have to live with.  Some of these people talk almost as if there are only two options: one with no laws or regulations and one with a tyrannical government imposing overreaching laws and regulations.  It seems they deny the possibility of good governance with commonsense laws and regulations. 

Question, should it be legal for me to take a spoon and dig out someone’s eye if I didn’t like the way they were looking at me?  The vast majority of people would say no.  (If you said yes, you need to seek professional, mental help.)  Would that count as a good, commonsense law then?  If so, why should it only apply to a certain geographic set of people?  Especially if they are only a certain geographic set of people because centuries ago other people just drew some lines on a map?  Should we work only on smaller, more local governance, or better overall governance?

You might be interested in this other post I did on another site: Do not knowingly harm others.

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Second Amendment Remedies



First off, I am not advocating violence towards anyone.  Violence should always be a last resort and an admission that you weren’t smart enough to find a better solution.  However, I’m also a writer who ponders things – sometimes dark and disturbing things – to maybe find story ideas.  With all the talk of gun regulations and whatnot going on now, I pondered about guns and came up with the following.

How many big name gun advocates – both celebrities and legislators – would need to be shot before the pro-gun side of legislatures would consider taking some action on gun control?  When gun violence happens to people you don’t know, you can take the detached, ideological view and talk about FREEDOMS, but when your friends, colleagues, or maybe even yourself are victims of gun violence, ideology may take the backseat to self-preserving practicality.