I'm a role-player.  That is, I play role-playing games... not the new-fangled kind that some people play on computers.  Every weekend or so, I gather with a group of other role-players, and we play role-playing games.  Usually, we play GURPS, but on Saturday, the other GM (he or I will GM on any given week) decided to start up a Spacemaster campaign.  As I was learning about how to build my character in this system, the GM's wife (also a player) spouted something off about Hillary Clinton giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.  It was sort of in context of Oklahoma's new anti-immigration bill going into effect on Thursday.  That's a whole other can of worms, though.

I figured that they were somewhat to the right, because his car has a "Support the Troops" sticker, and sometimes, the wife could be a bit racist.  I kind of let it slide, as I don't want to hijack a gaming session with a bitter argument about race with a woman in her 50's.  I wasn't going to go and defend the New York license decision, either, as I hadn't given it much thought.

Oh, ignorance.  Sadly, there is so much of it my state that even the legislators can be incredibly crass and downright intolerant.  Apparently, when a group of people interested in educating people about their religion offer free copies of the Koran to such legislators, that group is automatically labeled as terrorists.  It only makes sense, right?

There is a gross generalization that people (especially independents) often make out of politics: both sides are full of [insert negative property here.]  You know, both are full of corruption, extremism, bull-headedness, you name it.  I don't think that this overly symmetric view of politics is terribly accurate, but it persists.  Often, however, it is true, though usually in a lop-sided sense.  One such example is in science and technology.

On the political right, there are a great many Luddites.  Let us consider opposition to stem cell research, the teaching of evolution and other natural historical sciences, and action on global warming, just to name a few.  Sadly, the political left has its own problematic instances of resistance to scientific progress, opposition to nuclear energy and genetic engineering of useful organisms.

This is basically a diary asking for advice.  I haven't really done political volunteer work before, and I really want to do it, but I am having difficulties.  I filled out the web-forms for volunteering at Dr. David Hunter's site (OK-05) and the Oklahoma Democratic Party.  I also called Dr. Hunter's hq, which probably put me on their volunteer list as a duplicate.  A few weeks ago, on a Saturday, I drove over to the Dr. Hunter headquarters, and no one was there.

They haven't called, e-mailed, or anything like that.  I want to help, but when I offer, I get silence.  I find this odd, because apparently the OK-05 debate is tomorow night, and I would imagine that a campaign would alert its volunteers to be there.  If any fellow Okies know any other good way to help someone who needs it, please let me know.  I live in Edmond, so the local legislative races are a wash.  I am a student at OSU in Stillwater, but I would rather help a candidate who seeks to represent my district.  I am getting frustrated and feeling guilty at the same time.  Let me know what you think.

I have been thinking about how prescription drugs are as expensive as they are here, and I was also thinking about why that is.  The pharmaceutical industry does make a big profit off of the American public, and they charge us more than they charge people in other countries (because the other countries demand that.)  I was wondering why they can get away with the prices they charge.

Fundamentally, they can charge so much, because for any given product, they hold a monopoly.  So long as they control the patent for their product, a customer needing that drug must pay the price set by the pharmaceutical company.  Other drugs may treat the same problem, but ultimately, the circumstances and specific issues with the patient will determine which drugs are subscribed.  Until the patent expires, no other company may compete with the patent owner.

If we can ever expect to beat terrorism, or more specifically, extremist Islam, we must rely on Muslim moderates.  They are the only people who can make the extremists appear illegitimate.  Thankfully, there appears to be good news today.  Muslim youth in Indonesia are volunteering to guard Christian churches during the Christmas holidays.  Additionally, they are organizing with other non-Christians for this activity.

According to Al Jazeera, a youth wing of Indonesia's largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama, has volunteered to keep Christians safe.  Now, some may think that this activity sounds like intimidation, but there is a good reason that I think it is not.  According to the article:

"Tatang Hidayat, national coordinator of NU's Banser group, said: 'We have an annual programme to set up posts to secure Christmas. For this year, I have contacted groups from other religions like the Hindus and Buddhists and they have responded positively.'"

This is a positive development.

Given the high gasoline prices and the general tendency of liberals (and progressives) to be pro-environment, I thought that I'd share some of the things I do to drive in a fuel efficient manner.  Keep in mind that I have just recently driven across the country from Massachusetts to Oklahoma in a move.  I drove our '94 Ford Taurus wagon loaded to capacity with many of our most precious belongings along the interstates of our fair land, and I managed to squeeze out about 25 mpg along the way.  At one point, I got 27 mpg.  I'm proud of it.

Anyway, I want to spread wisdom beyond "buy a fuel efficient car."

There has been a recent uprising in abortion diaries lately, as there seems to be about once every month or so.  I don't usually write diaries about the hot topic of the hour, but then, I don't usually write diaries.  Anyway, I'm going to put in my two cents, though the opinion is probably worth less than two cents.

Emphasizing abortion will not win elections for Democrats (in general.)  I am not suggesting that Democrats should change there stance.  I am not suggesting that Democrats should stop fighting against the pro-life agenda.  They should simply not make it a campaign issue.  And here's why.

While I'm sure that there are Republican politicians who honestly believe that they are doing the Lord's work by pushing their right-wing Christian agenda, I am also certain that there are a lot more who use evangelical rhetoric just to get elected.  I'd love to call their bluff.  They did lose some credibility all on their own with the recent tragedy in Florida, and the timing might be right for the idea that I am about to present.

I would love to see a senator propose an amendment to the constitution that did two things: define the fetus as a human being and require that the federal government provide a socialized universal health care system.  More below...

We spend about half a trillion dollars on the Pentagon per year now.  That's a lot of money.  Actually, I really can't imagine that much money.  It is such a large figure that I really can't wrap my head around it.  And I'm a biologist.  I deal with cultures that probably have trillions of E. coli cells churning out my mutant tropomyosin.

I wonder how that money could be better spent.  Now, I know that we need to have some level of military spending.  We have bases everywhere to maintain and all that, but I'm sure that much of that money is being spent poorly.  Imagine if a tenth of that budget went to housing the homeless, though.  Or even a tax cut for the middle class.  All said, I think that we spend way too much money on our military, but how do we frame such a point of view?  Can we?  Should we?

There is this little lie that the right likes to say: the main-stream media is liberal.  (Except Fox, because it's "Fair and Balanced.")  As you can guess, this lie is extremely powerful.  Once you accept that the media is biased to the left, several things happen.  You begin to think that they're only telling you what they want you to hear.  You begin to think that the center is further to the right, and because you want to be in the mainstream, you move yourself to accomodate.  You send angry letters (which pile up and have an effect.)  You tune into Fox, which is bad.

A lie has to have a grain of truth, though.  And even this one does.  We all know that most reporters are liberal because of some poll.  We all know, however, that the people who own the media and produce it are conservatives because of the same poll.  And corporations have conservative interests.  Still, that's not enough.

It won't be passed for a while, if it ever is, but in order to set socialized medicine up for our country, I think that we have to start changing hearts and minds now.  Currently, "socializing" anything makes many people in the United States think of Soviet tanks imposing their atheistic will upon the defenseless masses, which is silly, because there are many capitalist countries who have created socialized medical systems.  We have to gradually change this mind-set if we are ever to create a socialized medical system that serves the people of our country well.

Many of you may be opposed to socialized medicine anyway, but I think that you should look at the talking points and judge their worth.  Basically, I want to express some sentiments that you can use to, I suppose, frame the issue.  I'll give them after the jump.

There is a common misconceptions amongst conservatives, especially the evangelical sort, that liberals are amoral.  We all know that this assertion is untrue, but it is not unfounded.  Liberals have a very different kind of morality than do conservatives.  In this diary, I want to contrast the two sorts of morality.

I also want to make some attempts to find out how we can go about showing the legitimacy of liberal morality to conservatives.  Ultimately, I think that conservative morality will not function in modern society and indeed does not function well at this point.  It will only become less and less useful.

It's an old idea, but why do we never talk about the Commons?  It's an important concept for modern liberal thought.  Even if you don't exactly know what it is and where it comes from, you probably use the concept in your thought processes (if you're liberal or progressive.)

The trouble is that no one really talks about it.  I've not seen it come up in diaries.  Lakoff meantions it in Don't Think of an Elephant but says that it's not well-known enough to be a good frame at present.  Why can't we make it one?  I'm sure that even many conservatives would see the merits of the concept of the Commons.

I've seen quite a bit of spite directed at evangelicals on this blog and from liberals/radicals/other left-wingers.  While much of it is probably deserved, I think that there are some fundamental misunderstandings about evangelicals, missionaries, and the like.

I am a deist scientist raised in a Southern Baptist family.  I went to church and learned about the Bible.  I went to the world's largest church camp-- Fall's Creek-- numerous times, and I was generally pretty taken in.  However, I am a free thinker, and as I thought about it and learned about it, I came to realize that evangelical Christianity is pretty wrong.  However, I cannot help but to respect evangelical Christians, and I think that you should, too.

When President Bush was pushing his plan for war in 2002 and early 2003, I was somewhat supportive.  I am a Democrat, a moderate liberal, but not a true pacifist, so there I was, thinking about how the issue was working.  The war didn't seem like that bad an idea to me; despite my reservations aobut the legitimacy of weapons of mass destruction, I figured that the elimination of Saddam Hussein would be a good idea.

I knew that the war was not connected to the "War on Terror."  I knew that Bush would probably rob quite a bit of oil, but getting rid of a bona fide tyrant...  That seemed like a decent thing to do.  The anti-war movement did not sway my limited support.

Really?  I got a little bit frustrated with a response to one of my comments stating that Democrats shouldn't oppose too many things, because Americans hate politics.  I think that this attitude is fairly wide-spread amongst Democrats, and that is a big problem.

First of all, when an American doesn't like politics, he or she generally doesn't pay attention to them and wouldn't know what the Democrats are opposing and wouldn't really care.  He or she is probably not a voter anyway.  Getting the person to care is good, but that is not my focus.  The people who care about politics are the ones watching the news about it.  They're going to have an opinion on what either party does anyway.  I don't think that elected officials should be trying to appear nice and ready to appease, just because they don't want to offend someone.

Over that past couple of months, as liberals and progressives do their soul-searching, some have wondered if their positions on the issues should change.  One of the positions that comes up is that of gun control.  I think that liberals should change their position on this issue.

First off, though, no one should ever change their position to pander.  One should always do so for genuine reasons.  I would never advocate telling people that you have changed your position to appease their points of view.  Instead, I hope that you will consider changing your pro-gun-control point of view for liberal reasons.

more below the fold...