Random Musings over Reheated Masala

So, I've been attempting to think of late, which has proved more difficult than I would care to admit at cocktail parties to suave strangers nourishing glasses of sherry and nibbling on bleu-cheese stuffed shrimp all the while discussing the latest charity auction they held in Madrid, not that I would be in that position to begin with, but you can at least tolerate the metaphor. So, what follows, may be considered be some to be "some thoughts."

Also, treat any of the italicized bits that are seperated from the main text as you would a picture-caption in a cracked article.

Except, you know, for the picture, or the article.... or really even the comedic skill and quality of writing.

1. The simple pleasures are often the most enjoyable. 
Sitting and watching a baseball game over a beer, or spending a few hours talking with one or two really good friends can often be a much more enjoyable time than any planned out activity or game. Maybe this is just me getting prematurely old, but there is something wonderful about chatting about things that one cares about with someone else whose opinion you value. Also, enjoying the outside air over a smoke (pipe) and drink (preferably scotch) with a friend is one of the most sublimely relaxing of pleasures. Now that I think about this.... maybe I am secretly British and from the 1920s... Oh well. There are worse things to realize about yourself.

Like the fact that you are secretly Bill Murray in any of his movies, but especially Groundhog Day.

2. The smaller the community, the better it is for society.
Humans identify themselves into groups. It's part of a common human trait. It's a way in which our minds can categorize ideas and more easily connect with others who think similarly (or avoid those who think dissimilarly). Example: "Oh, you also collect antique car tires? I haven't seen you at any of the ACT community meetings... we should hang out sometime." . . . "Oh. So you're a fan of the Bruins? Ah... well.... I have to go do. . something. . . in a different state than you."
A bit of a exaggeration.... it's unlikely someone would bring up the Bruins that early in a friendship (especially one based on such a positive and important common denominator), lest the very example illustrated should come to pass. But to get back on track: Humans. Groups. They happen. There is nothing wrong with groups, in principle. It's just that they are by nature a sort of mental shorthand. As a way of categorizing, grouping can only be as specific as we let it be. Think about the classic "forest for the trees" saying. In some ways, this same idea holds true here...

. . .and with all of the authority that being two classes short of a philosophy will give me, I feel obliged to point out this this is very similar to the objections some well thinking chaps brought up about language and its ability to convey meaning. But really, that's all the authority that gives me to speak on the matter. . .

You see, when it comes to the ways in which we group ourselves, we as humans always seem to make it into an us vs. them equation (more on this in the third thought I think below), and this is, as far as the good of all people in the world are concerned, very bad.
I was listening to a radio sports show this morning (because I am morbidly masochistic, and I'm trying to kill off as many brain cells as a non-political talk show can kill, because I still  want to have some left for the Doritos I want to have for dinner...), and the host was discussing the recent Boston Marathon bombings, as, to be honest, he should. It was during a sporting event, after all... However, the thing that really got to me was that he kept making the point that this was America, dammit,  and this shouldn't happen here. maybe in all of those other places where people fight each other that is acceptable, but how dare it happen here! Woe is it that it is no longer just the unenlightened peoples of other countries that are murdering each other without cause, but that now, even we enlightened have begun to do so as well! This is one of the most callous statements I have heard in a while, and it's bred purely out of this Us Vs. Them attitude. What? Are Rwandans, and Sudanians, and Afghans not people too? Add to this the political intrigue attached to most of the "foreign" genocides, whether it be from former colonial involvement, or from recent cold-war Soviet-West mucking about, and it seems that most of this violence can be seen directly be "enlightened" western influence. Odd. But also a different topic.
My point is, the best grouping we can get to for a realistic and decent picture of humanity is the individual. The world is made up of 7+ billion individuals. Not Americans and Scientists and Tree-Huggers and Presbyterians and Farmers, but Individuals. Each one. Every one. That is the only group that really can be counted as legitimate. And I especially think this when it comes to government and society. We are not "Americans," any more than we are "Alabamans" or "Houstonites" or even "Hillsborough Area Checkers Players."America is a bunch of individuals of whom each, truly, should be in all respects considered a self-governing unit. That's the idea any way.

But of course..... Ideas are in the mind of the beholder . . .

Now, what this boils down to, is that I think that the smaller the group, (generally speaking, and particularly if it is a coerced group, but more on that later), the more legitimate it is. For instance, I would very much be in favour of a shift within the general American attitude towards each "united state" being considered to be it's own autonomous state (you know.... like their name implies), at the very least, like the European countries have some semblance of (albeit disappearing) independence while united under a economical banner. Though, to be honest, if there was a movement for each state to divorce the Union and become their own independent State, I would probably support it if for no other reason than a smaller geographical state allows one to actually know and hold politicians and bureaucrats responsible for their actions. It would also have the factor of mitigating differences in belief when it comes to laws and societal action. If you don't believe in taxing stamp-collectors, for instance, and Arizona has that tax, but New Mexico doesn't, you can simply move next door (or more nearly next door than the current  Union allows). This makes even more sense when you think about the way people tend to group together. Very likely, what with the smaller governing bodies, more diversity of governing policies would be possible allowing for a greater majority of Americans to move to an area that believes in a governing policy similar to their own. If the people of Vermont want a policy of high taxes, constant social reform and universal healthcare, while the people of New Hampshire want to have no taxes, constant street-led bagpipery, and a completely privatized healthcare, the land that previously encompassed one constantly bickering, set of laws now allows two completely opposing viewpoints to live peacefully and happily with others who share their views. The area that makes up the current USA could essentially cover an entire spectrum of viewpoints in small, harmonious communities. And if you think about it, this only really makes sense. Aside from trade, (which could happen between communities regardless of their differing opinions and customs and laws), I generally do not socialize with people of radically different moral and political beliefs. And why would I want to? This is especially true when it comes to the marriage debate and abortion. Why would we even want the federal government to make a ruling on these obviously moral issues? Wouldn't it make more sense to have it be settled on a local scale? Or perhaps, not even on a government scale at all (in the case of marriage). Now, I realize that this becomes tricky simply because of the deeply held convictions at play here, but in principle, a localizing of the issue would to some extent de-politicize the debate and bring it down to the level of real people going through real issues, which can only help. The current state of either of these issues is so tied into the political climate that there is literally no way to have a productive discourse with either side. That is ridiculous.

I don't know if I've touched on everything my mind has been fanning over, but I think I've rambled enough on 2. Let's jump to the related thought 3:

3. Conversely, an individual view belies a tremendous notion of scope with the rest of humanity that a larger grouping nullifies.
One way to get at this is to think about the phenomenon of sports fandom. You, as fan of said team, by identification with other fans of that team, thereby dislike fans of all other teams, particularly and in some cases leading to hatred of certain "rival" teams. This sort of clannish mentality is not limited to small groups as the adjective suggests, and in fact, the problem is seemingly only exaggerated in step with the size of the group (think of the fruit of "American Exceptionalism," for instance, or the way in which the Soviets bred a national identity in their subjects from vastly different cultural and religious groups).

Like I touched on in point 2, the world is made up of a whole bunch of individual humans, who all have their own unique personalities and emotions and thoughts and problems and everything.

...Just like us real people. (I see what I did there...)

The problem, as I see it, is this: We mourn and scream and cry over the deaths of innocent American lives at a school shooting, as well we should. Any death is a tragedy, and for it to be the deaths of children, especially, we should mourn the heck out of it, and demand justice to be dispensed in the most swift and decisive manner possible. However.... when it is the death of a foreign person, particularly of a non-politically correct group, we either gloss over it, don't report it, or worst of all, cheer it on. For instance, have you even heard about any of these murders?
http://droneswatch.org/2013/01/20/list-of-children-killed-by-drone-strikes-in-pakistan-and-yemen/ 
Didn't think so. I had to search pretty hard even to find this information, though it is more accessible than it was even a few months ago... which I guess is good. My point is, these are no less despicable acts, performed by our government no less, and just because the victims are in a different country, practice a different religion and have a different skin color does not mean they are any less people. To be honest, cheering for the death of anyone is wrong, even if that someone is a known terrorist and murderer. It may be just for them to die, but to cheer it on is borderline animalistic, and is definitely pagan.
We should be mourning all human deaths and suffering, not just the ones that fit into our group-identity-box, and an individualist view helps us get there, because it reduces our grouping to just ourselves, which allows us to more clearly see the individualism in others, regardless of their heritage and belief system. Call me a pacifist (and I'm getting to the point that I might just agree with the attribution), but I don't think humans slaying and killing other humans was every something to ignore, let alone applaud.

4. I have re-definied my political views.

What I mean by that, is not that I have changed them, but rather that I have thought carefully about how I define them and come up with a way that I feel is less likely to be understood, and more likely to start a productive discussion.

I call it a "roasting" of the views, because it takes it from a lump of difficult to relate but coherent lump of intellectual meat and after slow roasting it, it becomes a succulent  delicious bit of . . . you know what, this is where the metaphor starts to "break down."

But seriously, what I've noticed, is that by approaching a discussion from the standpoint of "I believe in voluntary human action as a guidepost for the merit of a particular view," as opposed to coming in, guns blazing, from a "Anarcho-capitalist, libertarian" point of view, you tend to get a lot farther, and to relate your points a lot better. Granted, most of this comes from the fact that 1: Anarcho-Capitalist and Libertarian are both big words, and 2: Our society has managed to make them all scary words instead of allowing them to define themselves.

You're anarchist? Does that mean you think you're the Joker from batman??? 

But coming from the position of Voluntary versus Coercive action, you manage to sidestep this whole mis-information ploy by the state, and get at the real heart of the issue: Let people make their own choices and not be forced into anything. This allows one to have common cause with the leftist who truly believes that people should believe whatever they want (even if they don't practice that belief very well...), as well as the conservative who wants to live by himself with his gun collection and "not pay taxes to nobody." By saying that "I believe people should not be coerced by anyone into anything," you essentially take the moral high ground away from both the feel-good, do-good socialist who wants you to fund their hip replacement through taxation as well as the Republican who wants you to support taxation for the war on drugs or immigrants (who, going back to a previous discussion, are people too) before either of them even begin to speak. It also gives you a logical position from which to attack the institution of government as a whole without having to muck about in terms like "anarchy," "capitalism," and things of that nature. In other words, I'm trying to avoid using terms in discussion that people have already assigned a category and set of beliefs to (going back to those chaps who said stuff about language that I am not qualified to talk much about). Basically, if the other person in the discussion already thinks they have you pegged before you begin speaking, you're doomed--they won't listen, and they'll feel self-righteous in not listening--, but if you come at them from the side, you just might get under their skin, and that can be a very good thing if you're not a dick about it.

And now, since I don't believe in things like proof-reading, and also because I'm lazy, I'm just going to go ahead and post this and pretend like people will like me because I think I'm deep. Also... the Masala was good two days later and reheated..... I feel like there is a lesson there. Oh well.