Mandated Milestones

One week ago, I celebrated my eighteenth birthday. Thanks to that auspicious occasion, I can now make decisions about the health of my lungs, how to dispense of my money, and where to live. Because I am, apparently (at least according to the government) officially capable of making the most responsible decision about each of these subjects.

For instance, I can now be depended upon to not take money out of my bank account and fritter it away on drugs or sex or other irresponsible forms of entertainment. This is evident by the fact that I am now able to have my own, independent bank account, and able to draw money out of it whenever I want to, without my mother co-signing the withdrawal slip. Forget the fact that it caused my mother no end of inconvenience to take me to the bank every time I needed money, or that I couldn't withdraw money on the 21rst, but was suddenly able to on the 22nd...all of that. I am now responsible enough to make the best decision for myself.

Oh, and I can buy cigarettes now or something. Not sure why I'd want to. But I can. So go me.

I suppose the whole point of this is that arbitrary age-limits for certain aspects of life are sort of ridiculous. Because there is nothing fundamental that changes in a person's moral makeup or their thought processes when they reach a certain birthday. But the government must be seen to be doing something about certain behaviors (since God forbid people be allowed to exercise good judgement, or even poor judgement, and make a hash of it), so in the process they simply remove the ability to make choices at all.

O, Nanny State. Your ridiculousness will never cease to be amusing.

I have an apology to make

It's an advance apology, really, that will probably come into effect on November 7th.

You see, apparently my one vote for Gary Johnson/not Obama-Romney will be the one thing that manages to tip the balance in favor of All That Is Evil And Horrible In The World And Will Destroy America As We Think We Know It.

So I would like to apologize for my vote in advance, and for all the undeclared wars, out-of-control spending, inflation, and loss of rights that will come about because of it.

Thank you for your time.

Lest We Forget

For some reason, people in my hometown think that a good response to the tragedy of 9/11 is a carnival. I kid you not. There have been radio advertisements going out for the past three weeks, inviting all of us to a massive cookout with games for the kids that, somehow, helps us all to remember 9/11 and what occurred there.

Somehow.

America, you make no sense.

Of course, it's also the nation that responded to the deaths of 3,000 with the retributive killings of nearly a million, who invaded two countries because of it, ruining infrastructure and governments and sweeping them aside as "justifiable risk" and "collateral damage" because it's the Superpower of the Ages and are allowed to. It seems to me that, in the face of great tragedies, Americans en masse lose all power to think clearly, and since we lived in the Wild West era for too long, our lack of thinking skills translate to pulling out guns.

And so our country's ultimate memorial to our tragedy is causing more tragedy. In an attempt to "never forget", we've forgotten what it feels like to have your country attacked and people snatched away prematurely, to the point where we dismiss other countries' concerns about the deaths of their people.

So I suppose what I'm trying to say is: we don't have to forget what happened. That would be unnatural, and pretty cold. Because people did die, and lives are still being affected by that. But let's not remember so hard that we start sending more bombs places and justifying it because, in the logic of the playground, "they hit us first".

I honestly don't know

Perhaps I'm simply too surrounded by passionately conservative Republicans who spend a majority of their time coming to Chick-fil-A and "supporting our cause" (which is, near as I can tell, giving me $800 in month in funds for my future. I don't really mind), and harping on the fact that illegal immigrants are sure to bring about the downfall of All that is Dear and Good, or that dem ebil Mooslims are going to ruin the world...mostly because the Democrat party supposedly took references to God and Jerusalem from their platform.

Because, you know, this wouldn't be America if we weren't sending billions in aid to another country that doesn't really give a crap about us anyway.

Either way, I've found that politics--at least on a federal level--has become, for me at least, an endless cycle of cynical uncertainty. I know I don't like Romney or Obama, and I can tell you why. I know I don't like a lot of the things that our legislature insists upon doing, and once again, I can tell you why.

It's just that the desire to keep track of all the horrid things they're all inflicting upon us is gone, or at least not as dominant as it used to be. Perhaps I've just reached the 'meh' stage of cynicism.