Gun Control

I'm never going to pretend to be an expert on politics, and quite honestly, I'm not even going to read enough of the news to make this an educated post. If it turns out that I state something that is completely contrary to the actual facts, I don't even want to here about it. This is just a warning to society.

I've been hearing a lot of talk about President Obama and gun control. The common rumour going around is that if he had his way, no one except for the police and military would have weapons. I find it difficult to believe that a man as educated as himself could actually believe such a thing, but if it is true, we cannot allow the other uneducated members of the United States fall into the same idea.

I understand the need for gun registration and regulation. Knowing who owns what guns can help avoid and prosecute criminal activity, but getting rid of them altogether would be the most direct violation of the constitution since the day our country was founded. People complain that we should have the right to guns for recreation or self defense, but I think that the real reason that taking away our guns is such a bad idea is because we need guns to take over the government. When Thomas Jefferson wrote The Declaration of Independence he stated, "whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of [the people's natural rights], it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government." It would be nice if we could always abolish these government without violence, but this often isn't the case, hence in the bill of rights we were given the right to bear arms.

So far, we have not had the need to overthrow our government because our leaders have mostly stuck to the Constitution. They may have bee a little flexible in their interpretation here and there, but they've never done anything that just completely disregarded it. If we were denied the right to bear arms, then for the first time ever, we would need our arms. It makes sense that Barack may want to limit our ability to take over his power; from a Machiavellian standpoint, keeping us at bay is the right thing to do. Quite frankly, taking away the weapons of the people is the best first step to establishing a military dictatorship. If the people of America care for their Nation, then this must not happen.

This brings up an interesting point; if President Obama were to attempt to outlaw guns, would it be ethical to assassinate him? I'm a little torn on this subject because it certainly would help protect our country from tyranny and I'm sure that any of our founding fathers would want the aspiring dictator out of power as soon as possible, however I think and hope that it would not be necessary. Personally, I would not assassinate him because I have confidence that our government has enough checks and balances in place that a law to ban guns would never pass. Perhaps little Barack missed the day in 3rd grade when they went over the bill of rights, but I doubt that the entire congress and supreme court were absent on the same day.

If, however, by some means the President manages to violate our right to arms, he should count himself lucky to just be impeached. I hope that the patriotic, yet rash, people do not need to completely overthrow the government or assassinate the President. If justice prevails though, the President would be impeached, and then executed because high treason is a capital offense.

Coping with Disasters

Disasters bring out interesting aspects of the human species. When a person is placed in situation of peril, they portray some of their best and worst qualities, they show how they react under desperation and how strong their stamina is. In my life, I have lived through two major disasters: the first was in Chile in the earthquake of 2010, and the second, was just two days ago on the 16th of November when Hostess went out of business.

My usual Friday routine consists of going to a couple classes and spending the rest of the day slaving over homework. I was looking forward to this particular Friday because my classes were cancelled and I was going to get to spend the whole day just slaving over homework. Apart from that, it was just a normal Friday until my wife looked at the news on her iPhone and said "Hostess is going out of business right now!" A flood of emotions came over me; the first thing I thought of was shock, "how could such a great giant fall in such a short amount of time." My thoughts went to the Roman Empire and how it seemed so invincible in its prime, yet eventually went the way of all the world. Then my feelings turned to rage as I realized that this was most likely due to the health conscious people of America and their anti-sugar propaganda which has been plaguing our country. I dwelt on this thought of how preventable this disaster was until Drea informed me that Hostess had already shipped its last products and that what was on the shelves at stores was it. There was no time for more emotion; it was time to act.

In times of disaster, one of the more beautiful things that happens to people, is that they immediately look out for their friends and family. We sent out a text to inform our siblings and parents that they needed to raid the stores and then I called my sister Marsha, who did not have a car and could have been left stranded and twinkie-less if we didn't help her. It was clear that she understood the gravity of the situation when I called her and said, "Marsha, there's a big emergency... Hostess is going out of business." I was about to go on and explain that we would pick her up to buy some last Hostess products, but I was interrupted by her saying "I'll get my shoes." I just said "be there in five" and we picked her up.

Our first stop was the Maceys. The Maceys in Provo is probably the largest grocery store and was a likely place to find all of the products we need. Right next to it is Big Lots, so I dropped Drea and Marsha off there to do a quick sweep while I started running up and down every isle at Maceys. When we met up, Marsha and Drea were empty handed and all I was able to find was a bag of Wonder Bread (which we didn't really want anyway because we already had some and it doesn't last long).  We kept scouring the isles until we found it; a mostly empty end cap of Hostess products. Drea and I have been short on money lately and we were pretty selective about what we buy, but I just put my basket against the stand and started shoveling things in. You could tell that we weren't the first people there as most of it was missing already. We grabbed a box of twinkies, a lot of fruit pies, some zingers, small doughnuts, and a few other odds and ends. Deciding that we were done at Macy's, Marsha and Drea headed to checkout and I went to return the Wonder Bread. On my way back past the end cap, I saw an old man just looking down and shaking his head. "Its a sad day" I said. He just nodded.

We were thrilled to have found so many essentials to stock up for the future, but we were still missing what was arguably one of the most delicious things hostess had ever made; the Raspberry Zinger. Drea was wise enough to think of going to the Springville Walmart since the Orem Walmart is always picked over by college students. We hopped in the car, probably broke a few traffic laws, and speed down to Springville. On my way I couldn't get out of my head the thought that just the week before in Elder's Quorum we had a lesson on emergency preparedness. I thought I was so good at being ready. Drea and I made plans for how to contact each other and we decided to start storing water, but we never expected this. I just never thought it would happen to Hostess.

Disasters bring out the charity in people. We stopped at a stoplight and saw a homeless man begging for food and money. There was a part of me that thought "he would be just as happy with any type of food, why should we give him our Hostess stuff that we worked so hard for." But we all knew what we should do. We gave the man a Twinkie and told him to enjoy it since Hostess is going out of business.

As we were getting close to the end of Provo, Drea spotted an Albertsons and we decided to check it. Marsha was the first to make it into the door and the first thing she saw was a mother and a daughter heading to checkout with their arms full of boxes of Hostess brand treats. She pointed at them and yelled, "Where did you get that!" The mother pointed to the back of the store and said "Its at the end of that isle, but you'd better hurry, there's not much left." That's when I arrived and asked if they had any Raspberry Zingers. The mom replied despairingly "No!" We immediately turned around and ran out. I actually ran out of the store so fast that I didn't give the automatic doors enough time to open and I ran straight into them. We didn't even have time to laugh about it.

When we finally reached the Springville Walmart, we ran as fast as we could up and down the isles of the grocery section. I found an isle which was stocked full of Little Debbie products and had a mostly empty section right next to it with two frantic shoppers looking for what was left. As I arrived, I got down on my hands and knees and found at the very bottom shelf pushed all the way to the back, three boxes of Raspberry Zingers. I dove in and grabbed one of them, deciding to save the others for someone else.

After leaving Walmart, we had everything we needed except for Snowballs (which was a childhood favorite for Drea) and Ding Dongs (which I missed, but felt I could do without). We decided that we should probably get back and just try to go on with our normal everyday lives, but that we would be willing to try one more place on the way. We pulled into a gas station to give one last shot. We weren't very hopeful, so Drea and I just waited in the car while Marsha checked it out. After a few seconds, Marsha came out waving frantically. We ran in and found a whole shelf with some of the things we already had, plus Snowballs, Ding Dongs, and Hohos. It was a miracle.

The death of Hostess is something that will effect America forever. We wont be able to ration our small store for the rest of our lives (right now it seems hard to make it last more than a few weeks) but what we were able to gather is at least enough to let us give Hostess it's proper goodbye. Who knows what the future will hold. It may be that other companies buy many of Hostess' recipes, but what they will do with them is uncertain. Will our children ever know what its like to eat a sort of bad yellow cake with sort of bad cream stuffed in it? Well, our first child will at least, because we vow to save at least one Twinkie till its first birthday.

Election Pessimism

To the uneducated election follower, president Obama's victory in the recent presidential election came as a surprise. Romney was winning in both electoral votes and the popular vote up until close to the end after all. However, even someone who is uninterested in politics and doesn't have TV like me could tell that odds were by far in Obama's favour. I personally was rooting for Romney because I am sort of curious to see how he would do so I whipped out a spreadsheet and figured out what states he would have to win and kept track of which ones he already had. After Florida started looking pretty hopeless I called it over and posted my opinion on facebook.

To my surprise, I got a lot of reactions from other people like, "don't give up," and "its not over yet" as if people felt like I was pessimistic and thought that America had failed. I'll admit, it was still possible for Romney to miraculously win all of the other remaining states and win by a hair, but it was also possible for him to unveil a secret army and have a military coup, or for a giant meteor to hit the earth and kill us all, or any number of other election altering things to happen. The fact is though, that the probability of all of those events is really small. The question I have running through my head though, is this: which is more pessimistic, to think that Romney will not win the election, or to think that Obama winning means that America is doomed. I'm not going to get into the candidates policies and garbage in this blog and  frankly I'm not interested in anybodies opinions with regard to policies in my comments, but I just want to throw out there that there's nothing wrong with saying a candidate is going to win when you're pretty sure he's going to win.

Also, even if you're sure Obama will be horrible, its not like its the worst loss of the year. The worst loss was obviously the BYU vs Utah football game. It was a lot closer, and its outcome actually affects my life.

The Nerd Drug

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games or MMORPGs are destroying the lives of users all around the world. While they seem harmless (and even can be when handled with caution) they have caused gaming addictions that take over many gamers' lives. The typical gamer is a geeky guy who doesn't do well socially and often feels like the underdog in real life. When he is at his computer with his guild, he is on equal footing with everyone else 1. The virtual life becomes more attractive than reality so the gamer spends more and more time online developing his virtual self and becoming more and more addicted. Video game addictions (particularly addictions to MMORPGS) have led to divorces, college dropouts, lost jobs, and even suicides. It is unlikely that the government will be able to regulate video game addictions without violating our rights, so it is up to each individual to maintain a defense against this new drug.

Computers in Elementary School

The Group Catalyst

 The world has many people, therefore there are many groups of people as well. Each person has so many characteristics that it is impossible to not share some of them with other people. The natural tendency humans have to associate themselves with people who have common characteristics used to be barred by the difficulty of finding such people. For example there may be a duct tape enthusiast in California and one in South Africa, but up until recently there was no way for them to collaborate and share ideas. With the social media revolution, it is now easy for anyone with access to the internet to join groups of people with the same interests. With the duct tape enthusiast example (which was randomly selected without any prior knowledge to any duct tape groups) any tape artisan can simple google "duct tape forum" and find a place to discuss their craftsmanship. With the cost of forming groups lowered nearly to zero, people can communicate and associate with unprecedented ease.

Copywrongs

The United States Constitution permits Congress to pass patent and copyright laws to encourage the development of ideas. The idea is that the inventor will be more willing to invent things because he or she will make exclusive profit on the invention for a small amount of time. The current laws have digressed to the point that even the inventors hate them. Musicians would make more money if they owned their music, but they are forced to sell their ownership to record companies. The majority of software designers are fans of open source projects. The current patent laws actually impede invention through people who exploit them. "Patent trolls" are companies that don't actually invent anything, but just buy patents in order to sue people who happen to invent the same thing. In other words, instead of curing cancer, they buy an idea that may lead to curing cancer, wait for someone to cure cancer, and then sue them. Due to the fact that patents can be as vague as "an online backup system" and as bizarre as "thermally refreshed bread" (aka toast), just about anything an inventor can make is already patented.