Dream Silently

I’m kind of tired and out of it. I’m also happily drugged or feeling the remnants of the cold medicine I took last night. All I have to do is last until 2, go to a doctor’s appointment and then back to the place I’m house sitting for a really really long nap.

I’ll do a more meatier entry when I’m able to focus more, promise.

This lesson was about the Social Contract theory. Everything should be pretty self explanatory.

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“Political Evolution”

Many revolutions in the 20th century have helped shaped our current system of laws and beliefs. From the woman’s suffrage movement of the 1920s to Martin Luther King in the 1960s, individuals of different sexes, creed, and racial heritance have been recognized as equals to the dominant parties of that time. However, we are far from perfection that would mark our society as one of omnipotent power and godlike qualities.

As a general rule of thumb, whether we realize it or not, we are all bound by a single overpowering force known as the ethical concept of social contract theory. What is social contract theory? When can this contract be broken? How do we accept the need for change when the contract is apparently outdated?

A social contract is one that can be unspoken between people or parties. Take for instance the game Four Squares. In Four Squares, you have a gird of four squares, and you must bounce a ball back and forth until someone misses it. The ball must bounce at least once between hits. House rules can be decided before the start of the game. A typical one that the kids in my neighborhood required was that you could not cherry bomb the ball. To cherry bomb the ball is to take an opportunity to hit it so hard on its bounce that it shoots extremely high in the air, making it difficult to gauge where it’ll land. Many of the kids were short. To be able to involve everyone and to have a good time, we always stated this implicit rule. If you ignored it, you were often shunned and looked upon as an egoist who had no sportsmanship. This is an example of a social contract.

When is it okay to break a social contract? Are we even allowed to consider breaking such contracts? For the concept of sports, breaking the rules probably should not even be considered, as it would then change the game. However, what about breaking rules from a political view? An example of a written social contract is the laws that govern our country. These laws were made in a much simpler time and as such, have needed to evolve to accommodate for the changes in modern society. However, fighting to change these laws is extremely difficult because people do not like change. So how do we address this? How do we convince people of the need to evolve?

Back in the 1920s when the Suffrage Movement took place, women advocated that laws were unjust. Women felt that they could do anything that a man was capable of doing. Indeed, women proved just that during World War II. As a result, a new social contract had to be created, which showed that woman were an equal part of society and that they were quite capable of winning bread for the table. The same thing can be said for Martin Luther King Jr. and the advancement for equality of African Americans. In order to prove the unjustness of the current laws, they broke them to be noticed. Was this ethically right?

In order to prove how immoral laws of segregation were, they had to be broken to be noticed. Change cannot be created if no one realizes that a change is needed. Had King taken the proper channels, that is, petitioned for these changes through the nation’s legislature; the probability of these changes being made would have been extremely slim. One of the main arguments would have been, nobody is protesting that much because they are obeying, so what is the point in changing the law?

When it comes to change, why do people fear it? Is it because of personal bias? Because change could cause them to have to change an already happy life style? Our current political system for the United States is in dire need of updating. When our fore fathers first created the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the times were much simpler. For instance, there were only 13 states. That means fewer people to govern and compensate for. Now? We have 50 states and over 100 times the amount of people to govern. However, every time there is a suggestion for change, such as eliminating the Electoral College, people protest at the idea.

When a change is made, we cannot always know if it will be a good or bad change. We can make countless predictions and balance the consequences for the needed change, but it cannot guarantee that everything will work out for the best. Change causing an uncertain future is how people become afraid. If something works fine already, then what is the point in making it different?

Our knowledge has greatly increased; our technological capabilities have expanded. As such, our ideas have evolved to a more sophisticated level compared to our ancestors. Therefore, is evolution not a perfect reason to change?

Things become outdated and must evolve to become more practical for the current time or situation. Just as nature evolves its creatures to be able to adapt to their local environments, so too must a political system based on a social contract. Without evolution or even a revolution, we would still be living in the Stone Age.

This one totally sucks. Well… in my opinion it does. J thought it was alright. I’m starting to get down to the wire though for getting this class done… add in the fact that its nearly summer time and all I want to do is sit in the sun and soak it all up… and it equals really crappy lesson answers. :D

This one is on punishment for hate crimes. The other topic was the death penalty, which I tried to avoid at all costs while writing this. Why? Because I really don’t know how I feel about the death penalty. In many cases, I feel it is a cop out in dealing with criminals. At the same time though, I understand the need to have such a harsh punishment in order to deter other would be future murders.

Anyways… here it is in all of its glory. -_-

On another note, though I do not believe in it, Happy Easter!

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“Forcing Tolerance”

A hate crime is described as any various crimes that are motivated by hostility to a victim because of their group affiliation. This group is often related to one of color, creed, gender, or sexual orientation. Recently, harsher laws have been created for those crimes that are determined to be hate-based.

Our communities are filled with diversity. As the idiom says, the United States is a stewing pot, or at least in the sense of what is desired to be achieved. In reality, we are a green salad, each of us choosing to intermingle with those that are very different from our own persons, but retaining our individualities. It is then not surprising that an individual would develop personal bias. If we act on our personal bias to commit a crime, we should be punished harsher for the crime committed.

What is a personal bias? In particular, a personal bias, as it relates to hate crimes, can be defined as something we discriminate against based on our personal feelings towards it. We may be silent about these biases, but we may also be vocal depending on how strongly we feel about something. Personal biases cannot be avoided. We all have them. The important thing is whether we choose to let them guide us in our day-to-day activities.

Let us take an individual by the name of Billy Jones. Billy is a country boy from the south. He is white and may be a bit heavy set. He is considered a typical southerner, who has often been referred to as a good old boy. Billy, however, has a racial bias. He hates black people. He just cannot stand them. Whenever he sees one on the street, he walks to the opposite side and may throw a passing glare at them and mumble something under his breath.

This behavior is not surprising when it comes to reacting to a bias. In Billy’s case, he is avoiding it. However, what happens if Billy has a violent nature? That is, he likes to let the other know, he just does not like him. Let us say that Billy decides to walk by this African American and spit on him in passing, rather than just cross to the other side of the street. The fellow walking by him, we will call George. George is an upscale citizen with a good job and he is raising a beautiful family. He pauses and turns to Billy to stop him. George demands an explanation because it truly is inappropriate to spit on other people, whether you like them or not. Billy talks trash and eventually there is a brawl on the open street.

Instead of being tolerant, Billy has acted on his personal hatred towards George or what George represents. Is this appropriate? Especially for a supposedly diverse society? No, of course its not. In order for a society to work in tandem, everyone must respect and tolerate those that are not like them. In the case of racial discrimination, we cannot choose our skin colors before we are born. Thus, its pointless to think a yellow skinned person is lower than one with beige skin.
Let us say, that the brawl escalated so far out of control, that Billy kills George. How should Billy be punished? To further define this southern place, let us say that civil disputes that wind up with a person dead are punishable of up to 40 years imprisonment with parole in 10 years. Is this a harsh enough punishment for Billy without taking into account that the brawl was began because of racial discrimination? Will Billy truly learn his lesson before he gets out on parole?

By having harsher laws for hate crimes, we would encourage tolerance of those different from ourselves. It follows the concept of retribution: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The fear of punishment is not a new concept and, of course, is looked down upon by some (mostly those of a utilitarian nature). By the utilitarian theory, criminals would undergo a rehabilitation program. While this concept is novel, it often is reported as failing. Not to mention, swift, direct punishment is needed to reinforce to the general populace that certain crimes cannot be tolerated. Truly, if you knew you would go through rehabilitation for killing someone in a civil dispute, would that really scare you into not committing the crime? If I hated someone enough to hurt them, it certainly would not scare me.

With that in perspective, how much harsher should crimes committed because of hate be? Crimes committed from hate should never be tolerated. Examples must be made of those who would commit such crimes to demonstrate that they are wrong. In Billy’s case, I would say at least 40 years imprisonment without parole. Would Billy learn his lesson in that amount of time? Probably not, but others knowing his crime and his punishment would know better.

I recently switched my birth control to a different brand. I was on Mircette and now I’m on Desogen because they’re discontinuing the prior perscription at the health center. Of course, at my appointment, I came to find out that the mircette is probably what caused me to compete with my boyfriend in growing a beard. Wonderful right?

I was warned about the hormonal affects because of the change in levels. And today, they finally kicked in. One moment, I’m happy pleasant, witty, snapping jokes off, let me hug you friendly. The next? I wanted to rip someone’s throat out and eat them alive for no apparent reason.

Joe… aren’t you happy to be in the middle of the woods, wet and freezing cold, living off an hour of sleep and an MRE a day? If I were him, I’d rather be doing that than dealing with a girlfriend who’s having snapping moods on the phone. At least, compared to when I first started BC, I am prepared and ready for it.

I just got back from a movie and entertaining three other people for dinner and managed to keep control of my hormonal urges.

Now I have to remember to take deep breaths and fight the urge to go hide in the bathroom and cry.

…no tables.

That’s right, it is all, pure CSS and coded, painfully, by hand. Well, that is if you don’t count using HTML-Kit to display things in color coded tags to make sure it’s all lined up and closed :D

This will be my last layout for this site. I will be moving in about a month to a month and a half, if things go right to a new home on the web. Another words, I will stop being sprawled all over the place and will be at a centralized location. Mindless Words and Darkened Smiles will be closed, so that I might open a new chapter in my life that better reflects the me of today.

I’ll be installing Wordpress software at my new domain. Why wordpress? It has a load of bells and whistles that DX had that I miss terribly. Not to mention, I can categorize things!

At the moment, I’m waiting for my new domain to be transferred over to my host provider. After that’s done, I can start setting things up and then integrating things over from blogger to my new home. I will continue to post here, until I’m ready to start at my new place.

When that time comes, I’ll post the URL and a better explanation for the move. Yes, contrary to what some may think, just because I post about getting annoyed with blogger, isn’t the overall reason for the transfer.

In ending, please let me know if something doesn’t work right. I’ve troubleshooted everything for this layout, but I’m human and therefore prone to error. The only thing that looks odd is that with firefox users the margin is slightly off for the main content box. I’ve given up trying to fix that (you know, when I do it’s then off in IE >_

Yesterday, we explored the Fairbanks Truss Company. It’s this dinky red building off on Phillips Field Road. The guy there showed us one of the truss programs. R asked a good question, “What the heck do they need us (engineers) for when the program does everything?”

Hehehe…

We later went into the actual manufacturing part of the operation. To be honest, I thought it would be alot more complicated. They have a machine that programs for how to position the saws for cutting the boards and then they line up these magnatic like tables where they need to be to place the boards together. They assemble the boards and then go around the joint edges with a machine clamp to connect fanged metal plates that binds all the boards together.

With this process, they can get about 20 trusses done an hour (or that was my understanding).

Then, a game was began. The owner put two scrap pieces together, handed it to a fellow student and dared him to try and break it. Let’s see, factors the owner forgot: we’re currently students that are being taught to figure out the weakest part of a structural item. Hahaha, S snapped the board in half with one huge leap after propping it up across the front face (not on it’s side). And he’s a big guy, about 6′2″ and at least 190lbs. He managed to shear off the metal plates on both sides of the joint.

It was totally awesome.

So what does the owner do? He finds a stronger gauge plate! That time, only the wood sheared off.

It was amusing. For more information on trusses, this is actually a good site: Canadian Wood Council Truss Index. It doesn’t have the truss shape being built at the company we visited (I believe the one being built is called a K-Truss), but gives a good overview on the various things that goes into truss design.

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Also, I have a new art piece. I’ve gotten such great feedback on it at DA I could dance around with joy. Of course, if I hadn’t been ambitious and joined a 3d club and then also submitted the piece for posting in their gallery, it probably wouldn’t of ever gotten noticed. If you’re looking to be active on DA and are looking for feedback, I highly recommend looking into the clubs.

Anyways, the piece, titled “Lost in Dreams” :