Despertar

tax the rude

And other controversial political viewpoints.

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1. Do you have the guts to answer these questions and repost as The Controversial Survey?
Yes to the first, no to the second, but it wasn't a matter of guts, I just wanted to kill two birds with one stone and keep plowing through all these back Following entries.

2. Would you do meth if it was legalized?
No, meth melts your insides and it is burning through the Midwest faster than AIDS, a totally voluntary, totally preventable epidemic. Either one would break my mother's heart, but I'd definitely commit suicide before I'd turn myself into a retarded, drug-addled bastardization of who I really am. Long-term meth users are awful to be around and they make their families sad. Besides which, it supposedly isn't even fun after the tolerance develops.

3. Abortion: for or against?
Pro-choice, which isn't to say pro-abortion. I don't think there are nearly enough resources available to women who choose motherhood or abortion in unsavory situations.

4. Would our country fall with a woman president?
It would depend on the woman. I don't think every woman is inherently unqualified to serve as Commander-in-Chief, but you do have to wonder how it would affect foreign policy and some of our international relationships. Some national leaders, Mugabe is one of them, I think, won't even hold council with a woman present for cultural or religious reasons. We can't force the rest of the world to match us stride for stride in what we term "progressiveness."

5. Do you believe in the death penalty?
No.

6. Do you wish marijuana would be legalized already?
Here again, it's hard to say. I believe in free will, but I wouldn't especially want to raise my kids in a community where the people smoked freely and constantly just because they could. But then again, instinctively you want to believe certain vices lose their allure when they're legalized. But that isn't really true of alcohol, so who knows. Anyway, I don't smoke weed, so I don't care whether they legalize it or not.

7. Are you for or against premarital sex?
For, by default, I guess. I mean, for physical and emotional reasons, if you are willing and able to wait, I guess you're better off waiting. But we are ever-changing organisms, and relationships take work--there's something beautiful in that I can express my love for someone in a specific, unparalleled way without the assurance of permanence. But that might just be me rationalizing the fact that I've officially set up camp with the sinners.

8. Do you believe in God?
This can't be an accident.

9. Do you think same sex marriage should be legalized?
The concept of the civil union, as a secular institution, was established to bring order to property rights, and to "relieve" women of their unwarranted responsibility for the fruits of their inheritance. All the religious and cultural implications kind of accumulated over time, like dust on the sticky side of a piece of tape. As proven by the fact that the state recognizes marriages declared by all kinds of churches and government officials, um, God doesn't necessarily have to give you the wink of approval for your marriage to be a marriage. If you want to name your same-sex partner as your next of kin, God damn it, why shouldn't you? And anyway, gay people are going to be gay with or without the right to marry. I seriously can't figure out who still gives a shit about this, and how some people are so narrow-minded as to let this issue decide their votes for them.

10. Do you think it's wrong that so many Hispanics are moving to the USA?
Power of the individual. You wouldn't want to stay someplace you hated if there were the promise of a better life, would you? We do need better regulatory control, though. Over the summer, I worked with some undocumented kids, and their parents were incredibly remiss in putting them at risk by not going through the proper channels. And, yes, I can see how some people find it annoying that our national population is swelling due to an uncontrolled mass entry.

11. A twelve-year-old girl has a baby...should she keep it?
So many things we don't know here. If the choices are, keep it and raise it to the best of her abilities with the support of her extended family, that's definitely preferable to abandoning it in a dumpster, or letting it grow up in the severely failing foster care system. But if she's a whiny, selfish brat, like most twelve-year-olds, and if her parents are bad parents, which they probably are if their twelve-year-old was able to get pregnant, then the baby is probably better off being put up for adoption as a newborn.

12. Should the alcohol age be lowered to eighteen?
No. I don't even know if twenty-one is old enough, sometimes.

13. Should the war in Iraq be called off?
I don't know how vulnerable our military is right now, so I don't know whether that would be cutting our losses or just setting ourselves up for further attack.

14. Assisted suicide is illegal...do you agree?
No, I don't. No one should have to be here who doesn't want to.

15. Do you believe in spanking your children?
Yes. A lot of those parents who refuse to "intimidate" their children by punishing them physically wind up raising some of the biggest assholes ever. I've only ever been spanked twice, and it was extremely effective at putting me in my place. I remember both instances vividly. And I don't hate my parents for it, don't need therapy. Just know not to lie to my dad or defy my mom when she's already really stressed.

16. Would you burn an American flag for a million dollars?
Sure. The person who took this survey before me said, "Never." Which makes me think (s)he is crazy. A million dollars is a lot of money, and a flag is a stitched-together piece of cloth bearing symbols that appear in an infinite number of other places. I think anyone who thinks destroying a symbol is the same as acting on an idealogy is crazy.

17. A mother is declared innocent after murdering her five children in a temporary insanity case.
Okay, go on...

18. It's between you and a person who is being kept alive by life support, which one dies?
I mean, I think I'd have a hard time choosing my own life at the expense of someone else's in that situation, but if this person is on her deathbed and/or wishes someone would just pull the plug already anyway, I'm happy to make the decision easier for whoever's got their finger on the trigger.

19. Are you afraid others will judge you from reading some of your answers?
I am one hundred percent certain Ernie will take issue with at least one of them. But I'm kind of looking forward to it, actually.