Laws, politics, morality...AGHH!!! Most of us want to just stop listening when we hear these concepts, so I will be very impressed and grateful if you make it to the end of this post!
I've heard a lot of people say that they don't care about politics. I heard one guy go so far as to say that he is very political about not caring about politics. First of all, that's like saying you bully other bullies because you can't stand bullying, so maybe it's a good thing you're not voting on important decisions that impact our country. But I think we often get confused about what it is exactly we don't care about.
I only recently got interested in politics, which I think is a little too late. I don't know a lot of the history of politics or how a lot of things work, or how the political system actually works between the lines. I just care about the issues. I care about voting, and I care about the education of the issues. I want to know what the law says, not the media's slant or interpretation of it.
For example, I'm gonna pick on Rush Limbaugh. I doubt his show will lose rating because of my blog post. I try to listen to both Democratic and Republican advocates, so usually I'll listen to Rush or Sean Hannity at lunch or on my drive home and then throw on an episode of Jon Stewart at night. I think listening to what both sides have to say is the smart thing to do. So I was listening to Rush's show, or bits of it maybe, when he was addressing the woman who asked Congress to supply contraception for women. When Rush heard this, he said that asking someone for money to have sex is basically prostitution, so she's a slut. When I heard that, my first thought was, "yea, someone who asks someone else for money to have sex is a form of prostitution, so I can agree with that."
Hopefully people do a little digging around, or at least listen to both sides of the story. In this case I did. I looked up what was actually said by Sandra Fluke. She was asking Congress to provide medical contraception for women who's health depended on it, as it is getting really expensive. It wasn't to have sex. I don't think I even saw her address that issue. So yes, while asking for money to have sex is a form of prostitution, she didn't do that! She was asking for Congress to aid women who need contraception for medical issues to provide it for them.
I think what happens to a lot of people, and the media is horrible at helping us with this, is that they don't know the whole story. They're missing a side. They listen to Fox News and get what republicans think about the issue, or they watch Jon Stewart and only get how democrats feel. Being educated as to what is really going on allows us to make informed decisions. Not voting for Romney because he's evading paying taxes is ridiculous because that's not the whole story.
Now Rush has been reprimanded for his comments already, but those are the kinds of things that happen when we don't think and act for ourselves.
I took a class a few years ago in college called American Heritage. It was one of the toughest classes I'll ever take in college, and I'm in accounting! Basically it's a mixture of American History, World History, Political Science, Economics, and Sociology. I didn't do too well in the class, though I passed it. I did learn some very important things in that class, though, that I'll always be grateful for.
One thing I learned is one definition of a law: a law is legislated morality. The dictionary definition mentions rules, commands, authority, and a bunch of other words. But basically a law is legislated morality. We think stealing is immoral, so we have a law against stealing. We think killing is situational, so if you walk out of your house and shoot up your block, you receive one punishment. If you accidently hit someone with your car, you receive another. And if you shoot someone during wartime as a member of the military, you actually can receive rewards.
This definition pertains to political issues, not procedural things like how a corporation should file its taxes.
So we as a country have the opportunity to enact laws based on what we think is moral. One of the great things about our country is that we each get to have a voice. There are ways for us to get our concerns across. If we don't feel a proposed law is moral, then we can vote against it. We can write to our congressman to have a certain law created. We get to publicly declare what our morals are. Is abortion okay? What about in cases of rape or unplanned pregnancy? What if it endangers the health of the mother? Everyone has their own answers to these questions, even if the answer is just "I don't know," and we get to share them in a lot of ways.
While each of us has our own morals, we need to respect the morals of others. We may not agree with them, but in order for us to make this thing work, we need to have respect for others. We learn this in kindergarten but at some point we forget it. We also don't have to shove our morals onto other people, like on Facebook. We learned that shoving is wrong in kindergarten, too.
So when someone feels that homosexuality shouldn't be a part of marriage, that's their moral. They think homosexuality is wrong; they don't hate gay people. Well, if they do, they're wrong. Or if someone says abortions should be legal, that's their moral. Respect it. You can by all means vote against it, and you should always be willing to discuss these issues. But don't think that people are hateful or killers or any kind of extreme simply because they want their morals legislated.
Because that's what laws are and always have been.
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