Resistance is Futile
* Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile."
* I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity
* Update your journal with the answers to the questions
* Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions
My questions came from sonria.
What's the single biggest influence on your political positions?
That's a complicated question. My political affiliation, if not my positions, has changed greatly over the last decade. Probably the single greatest influence on that was the War in Afghanistan and the run-up to the War in Iraq, which dissuaded me of my belief in the Republican capacity for compassion and concern for the poor and powerless. My political positions are influenced primarily by Catholic social teaching, such as the preferential option for the poor and consistent life ethic. Almost all issues of politics, from food stamps to war to abortion to affordable housing in my mind are about the same thing, the sanctity of life and the duty of a just government to defend that life. I could get philosophical about it, but that would take up a lot of space. I don't think that either party has the interests of the poor as its chief priority, although there are some in both parties who probably do, and so I try to support efforts from both sides of the aisle that work toward justice and peace.
You can have any job you want, in any location you want. What is it?
I would love to get a job in social work or advocacy, to work with people again and feel that I was actively participating in the issues that I talk about here. My current job pays the bills but it's empty and meaningless and I feel like I'm just existing rather than being a part of something. As for location, I would love to be back in DC but I often felt frustrated when I actually lived there and I know I'd be itching to move away again after a year or two. I like to move around, something that I haven't had a lot of opportunity to do, and if I had a choice I'd probably choose to live next somewhere in the Midwest like Chicago or St. Louis. I've lived generally in the Mid-Atlantic (if you include Virginia and DC in that region) for all but three months of my adult life and all but a year of my entire life, and I would like to see other places for more than just a week's vacation.
Who would you most like to meet and why?
This was the hardest one to answer, the last one I responded to. The Catholic in me would answer Jesus or the Pope, but these are both trite and obvious and I'd probably be too nervous to talk to them anyway. If we're talking anyone in history I'd answer St. Francis of Assisi, I'd want to ask him about his experience of complete humility to God's plan that allowed him to kiss the leper and ride into the Sultan's camp in the middle of a war without fear. If we're talking about somebody alive today I'd probably say Lech Walesa, because of his willingness to lead a small group of workers against seemingly insurmountable odds to bring freedom to his country. I'd also like to talk with Adolf Hitler and Slobodan Milosevic out of morbid curiosity, I've always been perplexed by the ability of human beings to twist love for country and countryman into a view of the outsider as evil or even as a non-person unworthy of life.
Why do you use transit?
A combination of necessity and a belief that we need to use less fossil fuels as a civilization if we want to survive. If I could afford to have a car all the time then I would use transit a lot less, but I'd feel bad about it. If I still lived in a place that had reliable transit options (NJ isn't very good about that, at least in the South) then I wouldn't even consider having a car, because it's more trouble than it's worth and keeping a vehicle when you can easily do without one leads to unnecessary carbon emissions.
Do you have anywhere else you post your opinions?
Only my facebook, which I dislike because of its limits on length of post which encourage short posts and make it hard to flesh out an argument. I used to have a journal at blogger that I used for exclusively political issues, but I rarely remembered to update it and eventually got rid of it when I moved away from DC.
* I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity
* Update your journal with the answers to the questions
* Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions
My questions came from sonria.
What's the single biggest influence on your political positions?
That's a complicated question. My political affiliation, if not my positions, has changed greatly over the last decade. Probably the single greatest influence on that was the War in Afghanistan and the run-up to the War in Iraq, which dissuaded me of my belief in the Republican capacity for compassion and concern for the poor and powerless. My political positions are influenced primarily by Catholic social teaching, such as the preferential option for the poor and consistent life ethic. Almost all issues of politics, from food stamps to war to abortion to affordable housing in my mind are about the same thing, the sanctity of life and the duty of a just government to defend that life. I could get philosophical about it, but that would take up a lot of space. I don't think that either party has the interests of the poor as its chief priority, although there are some in both parties who probably do, and so I try to support efforts from both sides of the aisle that work toward justice and peace.
You can have any job you want, in any location you want. What is it?
I would love to get a job in social work or advocacy, to work with people again and feel that I was actively participating in the issues that I talk about here. My current job pays the bills but it's empty and meaningless and I feel like I'm just existing rather than being a part of something. As for location, I would love to be back in DC but I often felt frustrated when I actually lived there and I know I'd be itching to move away again after a year or two. I like to move around, something that I haven't had a lot of opportunity to do, and if I had a choice I'd probably choose to live next somewhere in the Midwest like Chicago or St. Louis. I've lived generally in the Mid-Atlantic (if you include Virginia and DC in that region) for all but three months of my adult life and all but a year of my entire life, and I would like to see other places for more than just a week's vacation.
Who would you most like to meet and why?
This was the hardest one to answer, the last one I responded to. The Catholic in me would answer Jesus or the Pope, but these are both trite and obvious and I'd probably be too nervous to talk to them anyway. If we're talking anyone in history I'd answer St. Francis of Assisi, I'd want to ask him about his experience of complete humility to God's plan that allowed him to kiss the leper and ride into the Sultan's camp in the middle of a war without fear. If we're talking about somebody alive today I'd probably say Lech Walesa, because of his willingness to lead a small group of workers against seemingly insurmountable odds to bring freedom to his country. I'd also like to talk with Adolf Hitler and Slobodan Milosevic out of morbid curiosity, I've always been perplexed by the ability of human beings to twist love for country and countryman into a view of the outsider as evil or even as a non-person unworthy of life.
Why do you use transit?
A combination of necessity and a belief that we need to use less fossil fuels as a civilization if we want to survive. If I could afford to have a car all the time then I would use transit a lot less, but I'd feel bad about it. If I still lived in a place that had reliable transit options (NJ isn't very good about that, at least in the South) then I wouldn't even consider having a car, because it's more trouble than it's worth and keeping a vehicle when you can easily do without one leads to unnecessary carbon emissions.
Do you have anywhere else you post your opinions?
Only my facebook, which I dislike because of its limits on length of post which encourage short posts and make it hard to flesh out an argument. I used to have a journal at blogger that I used for exclusively political issues, but I rarely remembered to update it and eventually got rid of it when I moved away from DC.