Part 1 of a Politics Series

I'm gonna be doing a little series on how I feel about politics now, and then another one in a year or so when it actually matters...

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Since I usually identify myself as a libertarian, everyone's been saying I should vote for Ron Paul. It's unlikely. My biggest concerns with him are:

1. Against gay marriage and adoption, and in favor of "don't ask, don't tell. Admittedly with a Democratic Congress he wouldn't be able to do a lot of damage. But he could block legislation that could secure rights for homosexuals, even if it doesn't involve federal money. He wouldn't try to ban gay marriage at a federal level, but at the same time he wouldn't allow laws that would prevent states from invading people's private lives. I know it won't happen for a long time, but we really need a constitutional amendment saying that the government cannot discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, same as we needed one that said they couldn't do it on the basis of race (There's not enough discrimination against women any more to warrant making that an amendment).

2. No federal money for schools. The one way in which I am really, truly not libertarian is that I think that we need to provide for children and the mentally handicapped or ill. But again, it's unlikely he would be able as president to decimate the federal school funding system, and on top of that at least he would push to repeal No Child Left Behind.

3. Anti-abortion. But he's agreed to leave the question of abortion to the states, which is something. With a Democratic Congress, which we will most likely have, that wouldn't be too disastrous.

4. He opposes the UN.


However, I agree with his fiscal and international policy ideas, and the concepts of state's rights and minimal intervention at the federal level. I've always felt that the only thing the federal government should enforce on the states are basic human rights and equality, and if necessary, protections for minors and the mentally handicapped/ill. Ideally the states would take care of the minors and mentally ill themselves, but they don't.

But I most likely won't vote for Ron Paul because of his stance on the rights of homosexuals, and I wouldn't vote for him anyway unless it looked like my vote didn't really matter in terms of keeping the religious right out of office.

And yes, I fully admit I bought her "Drive Me Crazy" Album. I was 10!

At the risk of following the trend-- my subject today is Britney Spears.

I'm sick of hearing about her. Not because she annoys me especially, but because it depresses me. This is a girl who is clearly, obviously mentally disturbed. She has substance abuse issues, repeatedly has mental breakdowns, has had her children taken away form her due to neglecting them and has been slowly driving her employees away. And what does everyone around her care about? Getting her career back on track.

She should never have done that MTV show. The execs should have said, "No way, come back once you've gotten your life under control." The music business should essentially blacklist her until she drops out of public eye long enough to undergo extensive psychiatric therapy, get clean, get at least joint custody of her kids and get back in shape. They have fancy counseling centers that cost a fortune and keep you away from the public eye-- why can't she go to one of those? The problem is she doesn't want to-- she seems to subsist off attention, probably due to bad parenting. The only way she will seek help is if she thinks that by getting it and getting back into the spotlight she'll get more attention.

The truth is, Britney Brand was pretty popular. She was very marketable. The music industry is trying to salvage her career by giving her a new CD, trying to give her a comeback, etc. They shouldn't. They want their money machine back, they need to turn her back into the pop star she was, only with a "sad period" in her life and maybe a book deal. Which means therapy.

If the record execs went to her and said, "We're dropping you, but if you prove that you can clean up your act and get mental help, we'll take you back" she might do nothing, at least not at first. But without a job and without her kids, she will eventually run out of alternatives. She will start to fade from the public eye, and that will terrify her.

In one of my more socialist thoughts, I wish that there was a way that people who were so obviously nutzo and were accepted as such by psychiatrists who only READ about them could be committed to an asylum against their will. Obviously such laws could be ripe for abuse and would need strict regulations on when and how they could be used, but seriously. Think of how many celebrities you hear about who really obviously need mental help. I'm not talking the Scientologists here, that's not the same thing-- but the Michael Jacksons who are addicted to creepy plastic surgery, the Mary-Kate Olsens who nearly starve themselves to death, and the Lindsey Lohans and Britney Spearses, who are trainwrecking their lives. No decent psychiatrist or medical doctor will argue that Michael Jackson or Britney Spears doesn't need serious therapy, just based on their obvious, public problems. And yet, they're around.

Honestly, what would be BEST for Britney Spears right now would be if she bought a nice house out in suburbia, went to therapy twice a week, stayed clean and got a "something to do" job as a lounge singer or a waitress-- quiet, out of the way, and able to live out her life in peace. If she did that for five years, the paparazzi would start to leave her alone, because PTA moms are boring.

But she won't, because she's an attention whore. Instead, she'll try to get her life back in the stupidest ways possible and we'll read about her drug-related death on the evening news...