Month: September 2014

If one group can and another group wants to, why can’t everyone?

Nathaniel Hall Same-sex Marriage

This is a pretty sensitive topic to a lot of people. I have a lot of friends who are for it and I have a lot of friends who are against it. That topic being same-sex marriage.

Personally, I’m not really for it. It’s not me. It’s not how I was raised. That said, I think people should be allowed to, but not for the typical reasons. I’ve heard very few people take the same stance as me, Nick Reed of KSGF being one, but I believe it is the most correct ways of going about it.

My view is that marriage is a religious ceremony, not a “government ceremony”. Marriage should be performed as your religion would perform such a ceremony, whether your religion recognizes same-sex marriage or not. If it doesn’t, that is between you and your church. As far as government should be concerned, marriage should be irrelevant. Don’t get be wrong, government should be involved, but only for contract resolution. Contracts should replace marriage as we know it today.

Why do I believe this? We always hear same-sex marriage proponents argue that they love who the love, that government and others should stay out of their bedrooms (that brings up a complete set of other issues), and that it is “fair” to allow same-sex couples to marry. Here is my issue with those arguments, they are completely one sided. They fail to account for those who believe in polygamy. The same pro same-sex arguments can be applied to to polygamy, but instead of someone of the same sex it is multiple people of the opposite sex. If their religion recognizes polygamy, why can’t they marry? Ultimately, it would all be governed by a contract and the government would assist with conflict resolution.

I honestly don’t see why this is such a difficult subject when there is such a simple solution where literally everyone can make their own decision and religion can still be involved where it is desired.

I’m sorry, only female firefighters are allowed to save me.

Nathaniel Hall Local

Let’s close our eyes and imagine you are asleep. Suddenly, your smoke alarm begins to sound. You awake to dark smoke and drop to the floor. You try to find your way out but become trapped. You hear sirens and begin to yell for help. Within seconds someone in a mask and firefighter gear crawls towards you. What do you do next? Do you 1) crawl out of the house with them or 2) ask them if they are male or female?

Springfield Fire Department is now going out of their way to recruit women firefighters. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with women firefighters. Most of them could probably send me to the hospital with one punch, but this is ridiculous. I don’t care what representation of male vs female there is in the fire department. I want someone who can do the job. I don’t want a more qualified male candidate to be turned down because adding a less qualified female would bring up the ratio. The same goes for white vs black or fat vs skinny or old vs young. I just want the job done correctly as quickly as possible.

All of this gender non-discrimination crap in Springfield is really getting on my nerves.

Springfield Fire Dept. Launches Effort To Hire More Women

Dinesh D’Souza and campaign donations

Nathaniel Hall Campaign Finance

Conservative author and film maker Dinesh D’Souza plead guilty to attempting to contribute too much money to a Republican candidate back in May. Now, federal prosecutors want D’Souza to spend time in prison for doing so. I absolutely believe this is wrong and that the law itself is a problem.

We are given our First Amendment rights for very good reasons, especially when it comes to political speech. The idea is that political speech is sacred because if you can’t speak out against those who run the government then we aren’t really a free nation. Whether people want to believe it or not, money is a means of speech. If you send money to a candidate you are supporting them. You wouldn’t send money to someone you don’t like.

The government currently limits individual political donations to $2,600 per person per election. Prior to this years Supreme Court decision, each person was also limited to a total of $48,600 every two years. The Supreme Court correctly ruled that this arbitrary amount limited free speech by limiting the amount of free political speech someone may participate in and therefore lifted the number of candidates an individual may contribute to. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court left amount the individual amount intact.

My question is, why are there limits? And if there are going to be limits, why are they on the individual citizens instead of on the candidates themselves? Politicians like to say we need campaign finance laws to keep politicians honest, but that seems backwards to me. Instead of keeping them honest, it forces us to be honest or face the wrath of the political machine. Some people say that allowing some people to donate or spend more money in support of a candidate dilutes the votes of others. That is completely incorrect because whether one person spends $1 or $1,000,000 your vote is still a single vote. Diluting of votes does occur when one person votes more than once or when people who aren’t supposed to vote (non-citizens or minors) vote. That is not the case in this situation.

I say, eliminate campaign finance laws. Why shouldn’t I be able to give $1,000,000 to my favorite candidate as long as someone on the opposing side is allowed (though possibly not able) to do the same.

More on the Dinesh D’Souza issue available at TheBlaze.