Who's Responsible?

"If we are to go on living together on this earth, we must all be responsible for it." -Kofi Annan

The big debate: Who is responsible for poverty? Who is responsible for providing safe drinking water in areas that don't have any? Who is responsible for decent working conditions? Who is responsible for giving food to those who have none? Who is responsible for taking care of the environment?

The answer: all of us. Liberals tend to expect the government to set regulations or outlaw certain practices. Conservatives want the government to stay out of it. Several times I have heard statistics of conservatives giving more money to charities, while more often I hear of liberals writing to government officials and/or staging protests. So what?

Does it matter how you go about working to make a more just world? I would argue that two avenues are equally important. I recently sent out an email about writing to representatives about the Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act of 2009, and one of the recipients replied with links to places through which you could donate to help get sanitary water to places in which water is scarce. Both ways of working for justice are vitally important.

Same is true for environmental concerns. We as individuals must be conscious of our energy uses and the things we buy. We must be aware of where our energy comes from and reduce consumption. We should buy local goods as much as possible. But the government may be necessary to regulate the companies who seek to make a profit at the cost of our environment. We bear the cost; they get the profit. As individuals, we can only do so much to stop this. But we must do what we can. Part of that includes asking our representatives to represent what is important to us. The other part that is just as important is to use our time and money to play our role, to buy fair trade products, to donate to organizations that work with those issues.

If you feel that much of this is the responsibility of the government, you can easily fall into the trap of expecting someone else to do it. But that is simply unacceptable. You too must do your part. If you always wait around expecting someone else to do something, nothing will ever get done. You must take charge. I must take charge.

It doesn't matter your political philosophy. What matters is that we come together to create a world in which children don't die from unsanitary drinking water, in which people can work hard and earn a livable wage, in which we don't need all the biggest and best for the cheapest prices at the expense of those who can hardly afford to feed their families (if they can). Are we ready to rise up and put an end to poverty?

One by one... we can do it if we choose.

Partisan Havens

This morning I walked downstairs to see my dad watching some cable news talk show. During the minute that I listened I heard the host begin to talk about how conservatives listen to conservative talk radio or watch conservative news shows and liberals listen to liberal talk radio or watch liberal news shows. Everyone just gets information that reinforces the ways he or she already thinks.

In addition, some sides of an issue show only the arguments or evidence for something, while the opposing viewpoints show only the evidence against something. One example would be the issue of global climate change. It seems that nobody will consider the other viewpoint. How can we ever find the truth if we only consider one side and dismiss the other side?

On the other hand, opposing viewpoints type of arguments or debates often don't effectively add to the conversation either. Too much of the success of an argument has to do with how the issue is presented by whoever is presenting that viewpoint. Meanwhile, there are some issues that don't legitimately have multiple viewpoints, but we present multiple viewpoints. Although the majority of, say, the scientific community believes one way, presenting both sides leaves the impression that the scientific community that directly studies that issue is evenly split.

Another example that I would like to address is the issue of abortion. I'm honestly quite sick of talking about this issue, but I'm going to for just a minute, especially since it's been in the news lately with the Pres. Obama speech at Notre Dame and the murder of the late-term abortion provider Dr. Tiller. I refuse to identify with either side on this issue because both sides refuse to acknowledge the very important and valid concerns of the other side. The pro-choice crowd has to argue that the fetus is not living to be able to say that it's okay to abort it, but spontaneous abortions occur all the time. And do we then charge a mother with manslaughter for a miscarriage induced by the mother not properly taking care of herself? That's part of where the issue gets sticky. But it is very obvious that the fetus is human (it is composed of human cells, what else could it be?) and that it is living because it is growing and changing. On the other hand, the pro-life crowd seems to think, despite evidence suggesting to the contrary, that outlawing abortion is the way to reduce abortions. In doing this, they demonize otherwise well-intentioned people with whom they happen to disagree. They make those who identify as pro-choice out to be intrinsically evil and selfish. But isn't it better to treat the whole issue with love? Isn't it better to create a society in which a woman is not punished for having a child, in which she is treated with love and given any help she needs? Isn't it better to have a society in which the father is just as responsible as the mother? I see the way to reduce abortions most clearly through providing women with alternatives and helping with the emotional and material support they need.

As someone who was involved in the pro-life club in her high school, briefly identified as pro-choice, and now cannot find a label that fits on this particular issue, I ask both sides of the debate to seriously and honestly consider the other side. I feel I can most clearly ask this on this issue because I disagree with both major groups in this debate. I know many will disagree with me on something. I'm sure that I'll be asked how I can justify keeping the killing of a living being legal if I believe it's living. The answer is this: the way the laws in our country work make it hard to make abortion illegal. Furthermore, what other ramifications will that have (like charging a mother for manslaugher for not taking care of herself while carrying her child)? It would be more loving and possibly more productive to fight abortions from a grass-roots level - that is, provide necessary services for women who need them (particularly free or cheap health care options and diapers and supplies needed to care for a baby).

So the question is, What is your real goal? Is it to be right or to have found the truth (or at least be working toward finding the truth)? Or maybe not the truth, but the best way to solve the problem?

This brings us back to the media. How can we find the truth if we just keep listening to the arguments in favor of our positions while dismissing the arguments against our positions? If truth is objectively true, how can we find the truth only through our own experiences not listening to the experiences of others? At the same time, I recognize that it's not possible to ignore our own experiences, but that we must recognize that our own experiences affect us and look beyond them, still including those experiences but recognizing the validity of others.

So what I want to know, what I cannot figure out, is how do we fix this media quandry that we have? Oh, by the way, I think it's a perfect example of this problem that liberals call the mainstream media too conservative and conservatives call the mainstream media too liberal. I just think it's incomplete and too focused on entertainment, but that's my opinion. What can you and I do? What can we ask of our media outlets? What can we ask of our government? Should we ask anything of the media or the government?

P.S. I appologize. I suck at keeping my blogs short. I guess that's something I'll be working on.

In My Name...

"Can we be the generation to end poverty?"

We'll never know if we don't try. Just put it in perspective. Our competitive comforts or the basic needs of others.