One Step Closer to Happiness

While same-sex marriage is becoming a more popular topic, I think more and more people are beginning to think in favor of it. Recently, there have been a lot of changed in the policies of same-sex marriage and the government is beginning to show their approval of it as well. Personally, I have never had a moment of doubt that this would be a good idea. While we are all humans trying to make it in this world in our own ways, I can’t find a reason why because of sexual preference, someone deserves to be less happy than the rest of us that were genetically designed to appreciate the opposite gender and prefer a “traditional marriage.”

I have a handful of friends that label themselves as gay or bisexual and because of this I am tuned into a lot of things that I was ultimately blind to before. Around the state and at many public schools and universities, there are clubs, pride walks, and protests trying to get people, not necessarily to believe in what they do, but to simply respect them for their beliefs and preferences. In 2014, which is supposed to be a more advanced, and an age of equality, these people still have to fight for the right to do something that will make them happy, meanwhile being hated by people who do not even know them because of something they naturally feel. “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, comes to mind when thinking about why gay marriage has ever been illegal. Why something as irrelevant as somebody’s sexual preference should affect the way they’re treated as a human beings or their personal pursuit for happiness is something that I just cannot fathom.

I think we are in a day and age where more people are trying to educate themselves and be open-minded and optimistic, and it is truly so important to do so. There is no difference between what is considered a “traditional marriage” and what would happen between gay couples, it is simply just two people with love in their hearts that want to share it forever. In the article titled “Anti-Gay Preachers Message of Hate Drowned out by Students Hymns about Love” found in the Huffington Post, the author Dominique Mosbergen tells a story about a Preacher showing up on a college campus to spread hate towards various sinful acts. In the article, you learn about a college campus that had to put up with the narrow-mindedness of an individual that let his religion take over and bashed individuals simply for their life choices. He goes as far as to say that the individuals that commit these “sins” are going to hell! I find confusion where religion begins for this reason, because I do not believe that someone on this earth has the right to tell anyone that they will be “damned to hell” for something they have read in a book and believe to be true. Overall, I have a belief that we are all equals on this earth, our genetic makeup should not be responsible for our treatment and we all should be able to live in peace if that is what we strive for.

Emotion Equality

In a relatively recent episode of “The Daily Show with John Stewart” he begins a discussion about women in politics. Now, when I first heard about the video I figured it was going to be degrading and when I read the title, “The Broads Are Crazy”, I was almost sure of it. When we began to get further into the video though, my reaction was different than what I had expected. At the beginning of the video he shows clips of news anchors putting Hillary Clinton down for getting emotional during a recent election while talking to the public. One news anchor even says, “We can’t have people that break down and start crying at the most difficult moments”, like what she did would be detrimental to her being a part of the government. For the rest of the video he makes sarcastic remarks about how women are not strong enough and have crazy mood swings, while showing clips of men struggling to keep it together in news conferences and in front of the public. He makes a lot of jokes about how females should not be able to run our country because of all of the emotions that we can’t hold back and then turns it around on men in a very comedic way. I think by doing this, he is trying to get a little bit of gender equality out there by showing both sides of the story from a male perspective. If a woman were doing what he did in this skit it would be looked over as her being a crazy, radical, feminist. I think he is trying to make us feel like we are unfair to women in the political system, that they are judged more harshly and that they should not be. He is portraying that when women get emotional about their country or their work they are labeled as weak but when men get emotional they are considered passionate, a strong leader, and a “mans-man”. With the video section on the mood swings I think he is trying to show us also that men are easily excitable and can get just as “girl-ish” with their angry or crazy outbursts. I personally think that he believes in this because he looks at the human race logically, he sees us as equals and that one person should not be looked down upon for their emotions any differently from another. We are all wired to have emotions and strong passionate feelings for certain things, and with work at something, this passion can come on even stronger, I think he is showcasing in this skit that women shouldn’t be judged for it, just because we are known to be more fragile. I strongly believe that sexism is still a problem today and that a lot of men think women are unsuitable for high government positions because they close-mindedly think that we are genuinely the weaker sex. John Stewart seems to put up a fight for women, and with his vulgar line at the end stating, “In politics, its okay to be a pussy as long as you have a dick.” it’s clear where he stands on the gender equality issue.

Think too much. Don't think enough.

In an article titled, “The 12 Cognitive Biases That Prevent You From Being Rational” by George Dvorsky, I examined several things that are prominent in our everyday life that we don’t think about nearly enough. In the introduction the author explains that these are things that help us make very quick rational decisions based on error in previous thought. We may be convinced of something, act on it, and only when it ends badly do we realize where our thought process was flawed. Throughout the several biases in this article, two really jumped out at me. The first one being, Post-Purchase Realization. In the description, this is described as how we will rationally purchases something because of heavy want in the moment, then suddenly feel guilt or potential remorse after buying something, usually expensive or worthless. We tend to convince ourselves over a lot of thought that we have actually made a good decision and eventually we truly believe that. I can’t count on all of my phalanges how many times this has happened to me, and not necessarily that they were worthless items, but just that I made myself broke by doing so. I personally know a lot of people like that also, who assume they can make the money situation work until they realize they've spent a lot more than they intended. I feel like this is a widely agreed on subject and that in public discourse it wouldn't create a debate, because I’m sure everyone has experienced this a few times. The other cognitive bias in this article that I found interesting was the “Ingroup Bias”. This explains how when we are close with one specific group of people we tend to put them on a pedestal above others. I think being part of a clique, or a group of friends, or even a fan of something will inevitably make you act like this. When you start to hang out with people a lot you all take little things from each other and begin to act and sound like one another and I think that helps support this. You all become so much alike that you feel you have to trust them and take their side on everything even if it might not be right. Going through high school easily made me realize that this is how a lot of groups of girls act. If you become best friends with someone and they dislike somebody else, then you just inherited an enemy as well. I have seen it a hundred times where somebody can go from an indifferent standpoint on someone, to pure hatred just because someone they’re friends with has that same outlook on them. The article suggests that this may be due to the oxytocin in our brain, which makes us love someone and want to be loved in return, thus resulting in agreeing to their interests and who they like and dislike. This affects public discourse in a lot of ways, it can create unnecessary tension in a lot of aspects of life just because you decide not to think for yourself, or give into your groups biased opinion of someone or something. From my personal experiences, this cognitive bias seems to be the most prevalent.

The Hitler Of Arizona Education

I was recently educated on an attempt to ban Mexican American Studies programs in Tucson, Arizona. Because of this idea, they have constructed a bill that will prevent Tucson Unified School District and many others from having any class that might “promote the overthrow of the American government”. Or in this case, a Mexican American Studies class. The superintendent of schools in our state, John Huppenthal is trying not only to make sure that these classes do not exist in the public school system, but he is taking it further now. In an article titled, “Arizona Official Considers Targeting Mexican American Studies in University”, author Roque Planas informs us that Huppenthal now intends to target universities. He believes that while cutting off children from learning about it, they need to target where the teachers learned it from and stop that before they all have the knowledge to teach it as well. In my opinion, he is sounding less like a superintendent that is supposed to be concerned with students learning, and more like a crazy dictator.

            I was asked if I think legislators should be able to dictate university curriculum and content, to which I responded, absolutely not. When we’re in high school we have a set curriculum to set us up for SAT’s and AIMS so that we may receive our diplomas. I was always told that after high school, you have a lot more academic freedom, that you can pick what you would like to study and major in, and so far I have been lucky enough to have experienced that in my college career. When I read this article I was actually in disbelief that someone would attempt to limit the knowledge that we, as “free American citizens” are allowed to obtain. I see college as the foundation for all of the knowledge that I will actually use in the real world. Never once have I heard a college professor say to me, “I don’t really want to teach this but I have to” like I very honestly have in high school. I believe that we get taught the more narrow understandings of the broad and partially useless knowledge we learned in high school. To demean college professors by telling them what they can and cannot teach after all of the years of schooling they went through themselves is absurd and un-American. For reasons like this I refuse to believe that our country is really free. I feel passionate about subjects like this in the sense that growing up I was told that I could be and do anything I wanted to and I’m feeling like as I get older I am finding that to be less true because of the restrictions put on us by our government. If Huppenthal successfully takes away these kinds of studies in Arizona Universities it could quickly become a trend Nation-wide, limiting a lot, if not all of our academic freedom. We need to learn about our history, and what made our culture and other cultures the way they are. I believe being cultured, and the freedom to be cultured is a blessing. At a very extremist standpoint with this bill in act, colleges could soon be educational factories, pumping us out one at a time with the things that only they want us to learn, so that we will never question our government or how we got to this point.