start a revolution

[warning: huge wall of text below]

i'll sum it up. in the blog of my friend maggie took place one of the most interesting and amusing discussion. it started about barack obama and hope for america, and ended talking about anything but it. it envolved me, maggie, and two other people identified as 'peter' and 'grace'.

i played the bad guy. of course. flaming for the win. yet i feel i was misread in several occasions.

i assume myself as conservative, pessimist and selfish. conservative because i believe that some values can not be forsaken and are above everything - namely, the human life. ironically enough, this very same standing makes me think that medical technologies like cloning, for example, should be studied and followed. or that cloned embryos should be studied due to the regenerative abilities of their cells. and again, because of the lifes that could be saved by cloning organs, regenerating lost limbs or healing lethal diseases. so you see, i'm conservative, yet not an amish. i'm quite liberal as well, as a matter of fact. if there is one thing that i believe in, is in the individual. i'm pessimist because that's the only way to keep my sanity. you can say it's a defensive stance, and i would kinda agree with that. pessimism, however, does not keep me from following my ambitions and doesn't make me fall in disbelief. it simply reminds me all the time that things can go wrong, terribly wrong. finally, i'm selfish because i believe in the individual. quoting ayn rand, the smallest minority is the individual. those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. mankind will have no rights whatsoever if the individual lose its rights for it - mankind is made of individuals, after all. so you see, it's not about praising social differences and gaps, it's not about wishing everyone to burn in hell, it's not about not be willing to help the next one. it has nothing to do with that. misreading for the win.

i do not see violence and war as something good, rather as something necessary. and let's face it, to fight is in our nature. it's embedded in our genetic code since the dawn of the world. for god's sake, we've been fighting each other since we left the caves. now, our rationality makes us think different and try to avoid open war. okay, nothing wrong with that. yet sometimes we simply run out of options. anti-war speeches doesn't appeal to me. especially since most of nowadays' so called 'pacifists' whine about iraq and israel, but keep their mouths shut about darfur. yes, darfur. do you know where it is, or what's going on there? most people don't. and the reason is, you can't blame the americans or israel for that slaughter. it involves no american, no economical interest, no oil; thus, it's not fashionable. threfore, no media coverage, no angry speeches on prime time. bloody hipocrisy.

i stand for less state interfering on citizens' lives. on that regard, i think i'm liberal. some people praise the welfare state. well, if you ask me, welfare state should be kept, but on a minimum level, only to help those who really need it (who, ironically, are often the ones fucked up by the same welfare state that was supposed to care about them). the state spends millions in the welfare thing; it would do better if all that money were to be fairly distributed by everyone instead, allowing each citizen to chose its doctor, the school for their kids, and so on. people must understand that healthcare and education would work much better if they were considered a service, and not a right. as we stand now, we allow doctors to me incompetent and education to be lousy. and we whine and whine, but the situation does not change.

also, i don't like to have the state interfering in every aspect of my personal life. the state must provide justice, security, minimal services and that would be enough. could provide education and healthcare, but on a different model as i explained above. enough. i don't want the state telling me i can open a vegan restaurant, but not a restaurant where my costumers can't smoke indoors. i don't want the state to tell me that i can't smoke, drink my scotch, eat my chips because it's bad for my health. no, i don't want to have the fucking state watching over my health at all. i don't want to have any fucking enlightened bureaocraut telling what i can give my kids to eat or not. hell, i don't want to be watched by a videocamera in every move i make, and i don't want the state, one day, to come and tell me how should i fuck my girlfriend/wife/lover/whatever. what i want is the right to make my own choices, no matter if they lead me towards a great success or a major mistake. and i want to handle the responsability and the consequences of both my successes and my failures. i'm tired of moral statements, i'm tired of watching the state trying to lurk into every aspect of our lives. i'm pissed for tradicional food products to be risking extintion because the sometimes century-old methods of their making are now being banned for the sake of public health. they are not secure for the health, the bureaucrats say. fuck the bureaucrats. what the hell do they know about it? it's not their damn business.

and - supreme heresy - i'm in for globalization. boys and girls from the cool left wing, i'm sorry to be the herald of the bad news, but the globalization become inevitable when the first portuguese ship left our shores more than five hundred years ago. and no, it won't make every individual equal. globalization allows us to trade at a scale never possible before, to get more information than what we can actually learn, to be in touch with people from so many different countries, cultures and religions. globalization appeals to our creativity and adaptability. okay: as the world gets smaller and bigger at the same time, we have to struggle to retain our individuality, to adapt ourselves to a world that changes faster than ever before. but from that struggle will emerge a better human being, since we are given far more options and possibilities to express ourselves.

and you know what? i'm tired of empty words, of meaningless speeches. to say something pretty ain't difficult. to mean something, on the other hand, is quite hard. i'm damn tired to live in a society that does not push us to be better, even to be the best. merit, excellence, have been thoroughly banned from the political speeches nowaday. we're all (supposed to be) equal, after all; how can anyone be better than anyone? so we live under false modesty, and if we dare so raise our voice and say out loud that we're good, we are automatically labeled as arrogant brats, as self-centered sons of a bitch, even if we are indeed good. nowadays kids learn shit. schools are chaotic. subjects like the holocaust or the crusades are being removed from the history books because some people can be culturally or religiously offended. for fucks sake, insanity has definetely taken over. those who deny the holocaust should speak to the american and russian soldiers who broke into auschwitz.

so yes, i'm full of anger and i could make a revolution right now. pity simply can't make me move for it, though, especially when there is so much more at stake. to care about how miserable are the others is very beautiful and noble. as a matter of fact, i know a lot of people who really care. however, i know few people who actually do something about it. act local. act local. act local. it's not that i don't care. it's not that i don't give a shit about it. i simply don't wave that battle standart on the morning wind when i'm not doing that much about it.

and yes, i'm pessimist. does that mean i don't fight for what i believe? no, it doesn't. does that mean i have no dreams or ideals? no, not at all. i have a lot, if you ask me. but i don't believe in the world, because the world is not something to believe in. i believe with what's possible, and what's impossible i keep for my dreams while i sleep.

and that's pretty much all about me. happy valentine's day.