Seriously. I’m really sorry, and sad for you.
But when you say that gays should not be given the same rights as everyone else, you’re a bigot by definition.
I mean, I know you don’t think you’re a bigot. You think you’re a modern, free-thinking reasonable person. All bigots think that. No one thinks of themselves as a bigot, because they’ve rationalized their reasons for treating other human beings as less than human.
Despite the fact that there is absolutely no evidence that anyone chooses their sexual orientation, you have decided that they do.
There are a few reasons why you may believe that.
Maybe your religion tells you that’s the case and you won’t question it.
Or maybe you have those feelings, and assume everyone else does too. Since you’re fighting the urges inside of you, you think everyone goes through that. “Since I have chosen not to act on my feelings,” you say, “then they can make the choice, too.”
Unfortunately, in either of these scenarios, you’re still a bigot.
The fact that you believe very strongly that you are correct doesn’t mean anything. The reasons for your bigotry aren’t important. All that matters is how you treat your fellow human beings.
And once you have decided that other humans can be treated as inferiors for things they can’t control — their sex, their race, their sexual orientation, their place of birth — then you’re a bigot no matter how sincerely you may believe you are not.
And I’m sorry for you.
So many arguments have ensued over a very basic question. What is the purpose of government?
Some of us feel that government should be used to promote the common good; that together, we can accomplish more than we can as individuals. We believe that it’s a good thing to take care of each other, and provide education, health care, and other social services. Government oversight of business is encouraged to make sure our food and medicine is safe and to provide for a living wage and safe working conditions. Let’s call this the “socialist” view of government.
Others feel that government should not infringe upon our freedoms and our liberties in any way, and should not use tax dollars for things like health care or unemployment benefits or other types of welfare. Government should not put so many restrictions on businesses or guns or our own personal lives. We’ll call this the “libertarian” view of government.
Most people fit somewhere between the two, and are completely inconsistent.
Democrats, for instance, believe in government involvement to regulate business and provide social services but are strong supporters of freedom in other areas (gay rights, abortion, etc.)
Republicans hate government involvement in business and social services but love to have the government regulate private behavior (what they consider “moral” behavior, which is primarily religion based).
Both the socialist view and the libertarian view are legitimate views. Both are valid. You can believe in either one of these views and be an absolute patriot who is being true to what America stands for.
And there lies the problem: There are people at either extreme who think that if you hold a view opposite from them, you are not just wrong, you are evil. You are anti-American, a traitor, someone who wants to destroy this country.
And that’s why we can’t get things done.
A lighter topic today!
The Oscars are this weekend, and I’m one of those unusual straight guys who doesn’t know who won the Super Bowl, but can tell you what won Best Picture for the past thirty years.
Here’s my list of the films that won Best Picture and my choice of what should have won. This is an entirely subjective list, although I did consider Oscar worthiness. For instance, while “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” may be one of my favorite films, even I don’t think it deserved an Oscar.
Admittedly, I have not seen every single film on this list. Sometimes I really don’t need to — I don’t have to see “The Greatest Show on Earth” to know that “Singin’ in the Rain” is better. Just about every critic in the world would agree on that.
| What Won | What Should Have Won | |
| 1928 | Wings | The Circus |
| 1929 | Broadway Melody | Steamboat Bill, Jr. |
| 1930 | All Quiet on the Western Front | All Quiet on the Western Front |
| 1931 | Cimarron | City Lights |
| 1932 | Grand Hotel | Scarface |
| 1933 | Calvacade | King Kong |
| 1934 | It Happened One Night | It Happened One Night |
| 1935 | Mutiny on the Bounty | Mutiny on the Bounty |
| 1936 | The Great Ziegfeld | Modern Times |
| 1937 | The Life of Emile Zola | Lost Horizon |
| 1938 | You Can’t Take it With You | The Adventures of Robin Hood |
| 1939 | Gone With the Wind | The Wizard of Oz |
| 1940 | Rebecca | The Grapes of Wrath |
| 1941 | How Green Was My Valley | Citizen Kane |
| 1942 | Mrs. Miniver | Sullivan’s Travels |
| 1943 | Casablanca | Casablanca |
| 1944 | Going My Way | Double Indemnity |
| 1945 | The Lost Weekend | Spellbound |
| 1946 | The Best Years of Our Lives | It’s a Wonderful Life |
| 1947 | Gentleman’s Agreement | Monsieur Verdoux |
| 1948 | Hamlet | The Treasure of the Sierra Madre |
| 1949 | All the King’s Men | All the King’s Men |
| 1950 | All About Eve | Sunset Boulevard |
| 1951 | An American in Paris | An American in Paris |
| 1952 | The Greatest Show on Earth | Singin’ in the Rain |
| 1953 | From Here to Eternity | From Here to Eternity |
| 1954 | On the Waterfront | Rear Window |
| 1955 | Marty | Mister Roberts |
| 1956 | Around the World in 80 Days | The Searchers |
| 1957 | The Bridge on the River Kwai | Witness for the Prosecution |
| 1958 | Gigi | Touch of Evil |
| 1959 | Ben-Hur | Some Like it Hot |
| 1960 | The Apartment | Psycho |
| 1961 | West Side Story | Judgment at Nuremberg |
| 1962 | Lawrence of Arabia | Lawrence of Arabia |
| 1963 | Tom Jones | Tom Jones |
| 1964 | My Fair Lady | Dr. Strangelove |
| 1965 | The Sound of Music | The Sound of Music |
| 1966 | A Man for All Seasons | A Man for All Seasons |
| 1967 | In The Heat of the Night | Bonnie and Clyde |
| 1968 | Oliver | 2001: A Space Odyssey |
| 1969 | Midnight Cowboy | Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid |
| 1970 | Patton | M*A*S*H |
| 1971 | The French Connection | A Clockwork Orange |
| 1972 | The Godfather | The Godfather |
| 1973 | The Sting | American Graffiti |
| 1974 | The Godfather Part 2 | The Godfather Part 2 |
| 1975 | One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest | One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest |
| 1976 | Rocky | Taxi Driver |
| 1977 | Annie Hall | Annie Hall |
| 1978 | The Deer Hunter | The Deer Hunter |
| 1979 | Kramer verses Kramer | Apocalypse Now |
| 1980 | Ordinary People | The Empire Strikes Back |
| 1981 | Chariots of Fire | Raiders of the Lost Ark |
| 1982 | Gandhi | ET |
| 1983 | Terms of Endearment | The Right Stuff |
| 1984 | Amadeus | Amadeus |
| 1985 | Out of Africa | Brazil |
| 1986 | Platoon | Platoon |
| 1987 | The Last Emperor | Empire of the Sun |
| 1988 | Rain Man | Rain Man |
| 1989 | Driving Miss Daisy | Do The Right Thing |
| 1990 | Dances with Wolves | Goodfellas |
| 1991 | The Silence of the Lambs | The Silence of the Lambs |
| 1992 | Unforgiven | Malcolm X |
| 1993 | Schindler’s List | Schindler’s List |
| 1994 | Forrest Gump | Pulp Fiction |
| 1995 | Braveheart | The American President |
| 1996 | The English Patient | Fargo |
| 1997 | Titanic | Amistad |
| 1998 | Shakespeare in Love | Saving Private Ryan |
| 1999 | American Beauty | American Beauty |
| 2000 | Gladiator | Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon |
| 2001 | A Beautiful Mind | The Fellowship of the Ring |
| 2002 | Chicago | The Two Towers |
| 2003 | The Return of the King | The Return of the King |
| 2004 | Million Dollar Baby | Kill Bill 2 |
| 2005 | Crash | Munich |
| 2006 | The Departed | The Departed |
| 2007 | No Country for Old Men | No Country For Old Men |
| 2008 | Slumdog Millionaire | The Dark Knight |
| 2009 | The Hurt Locker | Inglorius Basterds |
| 2010 | The King’s Speech | The Social Network |
| 2011 | The Artist | Hugo |
Too many people confuse political terms, and think that if they don’t agree with a politician, then that politician’s views are communistic and therefore undemocratic and so on. Let’s try to simplify things.
There are two sets of terms to know: economic and political. A government has both.
Economic
Capitalism. This is where the market decides and government stays out of it. No minimum wage, no health inspections, no laws against discrimination, no regulations on business at all. This doesn’t work, because you end up with the powerful running everything, destroying the economy, and keeping people in poverty.
Communism. This is where the government runs business. The idea is that we should all live together in peace and harmony and share everything, and the President earns the same amount as the guy who sweeps the street. This also doesn’t work, because it completely destroys initiative and any reason to try to improve yourself.
Socialism. This is where most countries are, where the government regulates business to prevent the abuses capitalism can bring, and provides many services (libraries, hospitals, parks, fire departments, social security, unemployment, etc.) This is the tough balance to meet. You don’t want to go too far in either direction, and most of the debate in the US is over how far to go.
Political
Democracy. This is where the people decide, usually through representative democracy or republicanism.
Totalitarianism. This is a dictatorship, whether individually controlled (North Korea) or committee controlled (China). Once more, there are degrees here as well as various types (monarchy, fascism, oligarchy). But the key thing they all have in common is that the decision-making power is not with the people.
What usually happens is that people confuse the economic with the political. The Soviet Union was a communist country but was also a totalitarian country, and people started associating the two. This is wrong. You could have a democratic communist country.
It’s even more confusing when countries lie about themselves. Just because you call yourself “the Democratic Republic of Vietnam” doesn’t mean you are a democratic republic, any more than China is the “people’s republic.” The Soviet Union was indeed a communist country, but it was a corrupt one because you know perfectly well that not everyone shared equally in that society.
Disclaimer: This is a really quick and simple explanation and is meant to be a guideline and a start for conversation.
I see here in today’s newspaper that Republicans think our problem with all the violent shootings we’ve had lately is with mental health, not with guns themselves. There are just too many crazy people, and we need to deal with them.
Someone remind me, please — which political party was it that has cut funding for mental health services year by year since the days of Reagan?
Oh my God! Do you realize what this means? Not only is Obama a tyrant, but so are most of the people we elected through our democratic process!
To make matters worse, so are the vast majority of Americans, including the vast majority of NRA members! Tyrants, all of them, out to destroy our way of life! We must gather our guns, hide in our shelters, and get ready for the tryants to come after us and install military law!
The only other possibility is that background checks in order to purchase guns is completely Constitutional, that democracy works, and that there is nothing wrong with doing everything we can to prevent criminals and the insane from getting guns.
But no — that would be crazy!
To those friends of mine who insist that Obama is some sort of fascist because he is going against “the will of the people”:
A majority of Americans support stricter gun control.
A majority of Americans support gay marriage.
A majority of Americans support keeping abortion legal.
A majority of Americans support Obamacare.
And, just in case it isn’t blatantly clear, a majority of Americans voted for Obama.
Now, you may disagree with these positions — and you have every right to do so — but you’re in the minority. Sometimes the minority is right. But when you’re in the minority, a claim that you represent “The Will of the People” just doesn’t cut it.
So cut it out.
ventrellaquest.com 