Social Issues.

This post was originally written on 3/25/2012


The most visible aspect of any political campaign are the Social Issues.  I like to call them the Sex, Drugs and Rock N' Roll of politics.  Much like sex and drugs and music, these are the issues that change a little bit with every generation, but that serve the same purpose no matter how much they change.  The purpose of the Social Issues in the realm of politics is to divide us up into tidy little groups, then whip us into a frenzy by promoting the point of view that the group you're trying to gain support from holds.  These issues hide behind many different names, such as Religion and Morality, Abortion, Capital Punishment, Stem Cell Research, Gay Rights, Legalizing Marijuana, and Immigration, but the purpose of politicians in bringing them up is the same.  They want everyone who feels strongly about one of these issues to get up off the couch and vote for them, in the hopes that by voting for a politician who agrees with their point of view they can help make everyone see things the way that they do- which is of course the right way.

     The thing about social issues is that they don't belong in government at all most of the time.  All of them are influenced by the personal feelings of each individual citizen.  Who the citizens of a nation are, as well as what their feelings are about different things; well, those things change over time.  The role of our government is not to dictate to us what we should think about things- it is to find and implement solutions to actual problems.  Siding with people who think one thing over those who think another thing doesn't fix problems.  Before government can act to solve a problem for it's citizens, those citizens must first get it straight what exactly the problem is, and whether having a law will fix it.  This means that there are limits to what government can and cannot achieve.  In an ever changing society, simply legislating that everyone conform to the values and morals held by simple majority of the people will never be a long term solution to any of the underlying problems that lead people to get so worked up about these Social Issues.  I'm going to address some of these divisive issues and the role that government can and should play in them as I see it.

RELIGION AND MORALITY

    This is the number one Social Issue that Government absolutely cannot involve itself in.  So clear were the men who created our system of government on this fact, that they addressed it right off the bat in the document on which our government is based.  This one deserves yet another use of the quote from the first amendment-

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

     The entire purpose of government is to make laws governing the behavior of the citizens that it governs.  The first amendment guarantees that no law can ever be made to establish any religion, or to prohibit people from following any religion either.  Morality is slightly different than religion, but not different enough to split hairs about.  As long as we live under a form of government in the United States that is based upon the rules laid down in the Constitution, we are going to have different sets of belief that are followed by the various citizens of our nation.  No amount of wishing, praying, or screaming about it will change that fact.

     It is, however, the role of our government to make laws that protect the rights of each citizen equally to live out their lives freely in the pursuit of their own happiness.  One of those rights is the freedom to believe or not believe whatever religious dogma happens to float your personal boat, and to follow the doctrines of that religion as long as in doing so you don't get in the way of someone else living their life according to the beliefs that they hold.  Every individual is free to practice whichever religion they believe in, in whatever way they deem appropriate.  They don't get to group themselves together, call themselves a "church" or a "moral majority" and then try to use government to force citizens who believe differently than them to follow the standards that they hold themselves to based on what their religion tells them is correct.

     What government must assess and make laws regarding is whether the actions that one person uses to express their religious beliefs infringes upon the rights of someone else to hold or express their own religious beliefs.  This is sometimes tricky, because there is always some asshole who has to argue semantics and push the envelope to see just how far it will stretch before it rips.  It is pretty much a given that killing someone because God told you to is not excusable by law when you judge that action by the standards of our Constitution.  That one deprives the person you killed of life, without any sort of due process, and to say that you were right to do so would require the Government to affirm that the God which your religion taught you to believe in is real.  Some things aren't as cut and dried, such as whether your right to proselytize for your religion as your are directed to by the doctrine you follow is equal to, lesser than, or greater than the right of others to peacefully enjoy public spaces.

     What is clear is that no law can be created simply on the grounds that the belief of a particular religion or group of religions justifies it.  To do so and impose a standard of behavior, the origin of which is based only in the doctrines of a religious belief, is to establish the beliefs of that religion as being superior to the beliefs of other religions that conflict with it. That breaks rule number one.  Before a law can be enacted that prohibits a behavior, a need must be shown for that law that draws it origin from outside of any religious belief.  For example, if our government wants to make it illegal to falsely accuse someone of a crime, Senator So and So can't just write a bill that says we should make the 9th commandment a law.  In order to make it a valid law, he's going to have to find some justification outside of the Holy Bible those religions that follow it before it will survive a Constitutionality challenge.  He can easily argue that someone who falsely accuses someone of a crime has violated that persons right to liberty during the time that they sat in jail on the erroneous charge, or that their false claim stole resources in the form of monies paid to police who responded to the call, but a simple "That religion says this is bad" doesn't cut the mustard.

ABORTION

     This is one that has been around for a very long time.  Even before it got dragged into the political arena, women were trying to deal with unplanned pregnancies, and many of these women have made the decision that being pregnant and giving birth are not something that fits into their life.  For just as long as women have been trying to end unwanted pregnancies, other people have been trying to make sure that every pregnancy results in a baby, wanted or not.  The issue here isn't when life begins, or whether women have a right to decide if they want to be pregnant..  These aren't problems that any government can solve for people, because government, no matter how hard they try, cannot enforce a law that people THINK a certain thing.

     The only role that government can possibly play in dealing with the Abortion issue is to make laws prohibiting or allowing abortion, depending on whether it is deemed more important to protect the right to life of the fetus, or the rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness of the mother.  Due to the potential risks involved for a woman during any pregnancy, the rights of the mother to life must also be considered.  There will always be those who feel it is important to protect the rights of the fetus, and there will always be others who feel it is important to protect the rights of the mother.  By making this an issue upon which the validity of a political candidate is judged, we will continue to see laws enacted and enforced that are contradictory to one another, depending on who carried the most votes in the last election.  The actual problem, which is that women are still getting pregnant when they don't want to be, is still there, and it leads to a whole host of other problems that our society must deal with.  Because government cannot solve the problems inherent in this issue, it should not being trying to.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
     Another social issue that government cannot solve is the question of whether Capital Punishment is right or wrong.  Right and wrong are not always black and white.  This issue in particular has a whole lot of gray.  Some people are always going to believe that there are certain crimes for which death is the only proper punishment.  Others will always believe that it is not the role of the State to take life for any reason.  Both points of view are valid when you consider the basis on which those opinions are formed.  No law is ever going to effectively convince either side that the other position is correct.  Switching back and forth between the two extremes does nothing to solve the underlying issue of how to stop people from committing these crimes.  Sure, it may preserve the life of someone who has committed a heinous act against another person so that they can instead die of old age in prison, but for the rest of us the best government can do is to make us feel better that the current law agrees that we're "right".

STEM CELL RESEARCH

     Much like the Abortion issue, the issue of Stem Cell Research is inflammatory and nearly unsolvable by any action that government may choose to take.  It all comes down to answering the question of whether one type of life is more worthy than another.  The biggest difference in this situation is that stem cells are not even capable of becoming a life without the assistance of medical intervention.  There are definite potential benefits to be had from some living human beings from stem cell research and therapy.  It is a fact that under ideal circumstances, some of the embryos from which embryonic stem cells are drawn could develop into living human beings themselves.  The question is who deserves that chance at life more, and it is not a question that can be answered by politicians, or the general public, no matter how long we spend arguing about it and trying to craft legal parameters with which to control it.

GAY RIGHTS
     Gay Rights is definitely a major social issue that actually does have some validity in the context of politics, but only insofar as that there are some problems that government can make laws (or abolish some) to fix.  Gay is a term used to describe some people who are already citizens of the US, and the rights that these people are asking for are ones that they would already enjoy as citizens, but for one tiny detail.  Gay people just happen to prefer to pair off and enjoy physical relationships with people who have the same reproductive organs that they have.   Now, it is not the role of government to make everyone think that being gay is okay, but it is the role of government to make laws protecting the rights of any citizen to think and behave as they choose when it isn't infringing on the rights of another citizen.

     There are many rights typically enjoyed by every adult citizen that are being denied to citizen who happen to be gay, and government needs to make sure that they are doing their job by ensuring that these people get to enjoy the same rights to life, liberty and happiness that everyone who does not happen to be gay enjoys.  That is where government's role in the Gay Rights issue stops.  Government either makes or enforces the laws equally for all citizens, and individuals deal with what they think about homosexuality and whether it is something that is right for them on their own.  It is not the role of any government or individual to force anyone to be gay, or to think that gay is right or wrong, but it is the protected right of everyone to be gay if they are or choose to be and be left the hell alone about it.

LEGALIZING MARIJUANA

     Like Gay Rights, whether or not to Legalize Marijuana use is one of those things that government does have a limited role in.  At issue is whether or not government can ever make a decision on this issue that everyone will accept and agree with.  Evidence exists both for and against the use of marijuana for various purposes, which can be viewed as both harmful and beneficial.  The role of government is to arbitrate whether the benefits of it's use can be balanced against the negative impact that a person's use may have on others.  There are many similarities between marijuana and other substances such as tobacco or alcohol, both of which are completely legal for use with certain restrictions.  The problem arises when considering the differences between marijuana and those other substances.

     For example, like marijuana, tobacco is a substance derived from a plant that can grow naturally under the right conditions.  Tobacco has an effect on the person smoking it, and can also have a negative long term consequence for others who inhale the smoke from another person's cigarette or pipe.  The difference is that marijuana is a much more potently psychoactive drug than tobacco is, which is why so many people like to smoke it in the first place- to get high.  So the effect of inhaling the smoke from another person's tobacco cigarette is a little bit different than the effect of inhaling the smoke from another person's joint.  That is the main reason that comparing marijuana to alcohol isn't quite an apples to apples argument either.  Government has made steps forward in addressing the issue of allowing people to reap the medical benefits of marijuana in a controlled way, but simply voting for a candidate because they are for or against allowing people to smoke pot if they want to isn't going to solve the issue of how to protect citizens who don't want to get high from getting a contact buzz if all the pot smokers were allowed to light up in a bar all at the same time, or how to protect employers from handing over the keys to their company truck to employees who are half baked.  There's another problem.  Pot doesn't clear the system as quickly as alcohol does, so it makes it kind of hard for an employer who wants to prohibit their employees from being high on the job to tell whether that employee who just fucked up big time was high when they did it, or if they just happened to get high a few days ago and the screw up was simply the result of stupidity or inattention.

IMMIGRATION

     I'm going to wrap up this piece with some thoughts on Immigration.  The reason that I have chosen to include Immigration in the Social Issues category is because as it is being used in this particular election cycle, the Immigration issue basically boils down to whether it is okay to hate people who are different than you.  The answer to that question isn't one that government can really give people.  I happen to think that it isn't okay, but there are a lot of people who feel that thinking that is exactly what it means to be a good American.  As far as that goes, it is not the role of government to dictate to citizens what degree of xenophobia is just the right amount.  What is the role of government is to create a system of legal immigration that can actually be implemented and carried out.  The fact that, after 225 years of people meandering into this country and joining together to create the society that we're all living in now, we don't already have a system that works to keep illegal immigrants out is a testament to the fact that our government has been asleep at the switch on this issue.  We need to stop bickering about how to throw out all the people who are already here, and elect some people who can actually get the job of keeping more from coming in done.

     At no time in our nations history have we lived without the problem of illegal immigration.  If not for illegal immigration we wouldn't even have this country to begin with, and a whole hell of a lot of the productive members of our society wouldn't be here either.  People need to stop trying to equate the more relaxed immigration policies of generations past with the more rigid but extremely complicated immigration policies of today.  Just because your family tree has had branches growing over here for a few generations doesn't mean that your ancestors jumped through all of the hoops that immigrants today have to hop through.

Since I'm white, I always knew that my ancestors had come here from some place else.  I've learned that between three to five generations ago, most of my people got here on boats from other countries, namely  Sweden, Germany, and England.  There are other branches of my family that I suspect may have come from one of those other countries where most everyone is blonde, but I can't even get them back that far.  What I have been able to confirm is that none of my ancestors sent any paperwork ahead of them asking if it was okay for them to come.  All of them simply bought tickets to get on a boat (except for one guy who is believed to have skipped the buying a ticket part) and came here.  Once they were here, they followed the trail of a relative or a job and settled in different places all over the country.  The most recent immigrant relatives I've been able to find showed up here in about 1890, and it took 6 years before any officials got around to checking up on him and recording his entry into the country.  Under current laws, this ancestor of mine would have been charged for being here illegally and would have been deported.  Instead, he got two citizens to vouch for his value as an employee at the coal mine he worked in, and he was naturalized.

     No doubt there are problems for our society being caused by some of the people who have entered this country without following the proper procedure.  These problems are no worse than the ones caused for our society by many of the people who are citizens by virtue of having been born here to legal parents.  The fact that we have a shit ton of people living here who managed to get in around the system reflects poorly on the members of government who didn't figure out a way to keep them out as much as it reflects upon those people.  And those people have been walking in here over a long span of years, so blaming it on those who've served for the last few years doesn't solve anything.

     In summary, no one seems to be really happy with the government that we have working for us right now.  The biggest reason for this is that our government is no longer working for us at all, instead, the different factions that make up our system of government are all trying to find some way to please everybody some of the time, when they aren't supposed to be here to make us happy at all.  Their job is not to make everyone the same, it is to make it possible for us to live together in spite of our differences.

Get over it an