Epic Guide|Mostly Harmless

I have seen a lot of bad movies in my time; I have been tricked by plenty of previews. Some of the bad movies I have seen include Battlefield Earth, Mission to Mars and Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse. However, this weekend I witnessed the most painful movie experience yet. The New World seemed like it would be good, it stared Colin Farrell and Christian Bale and was about Jamestown, the first English colony in the Americas. I expected it to make white people look dirty and ill-willed toward nature, I got that part right. What I didn’t expect was there being more lame voiceovers than character dialogue. Now, being a fan of history, I thought this movie wouldn’t be half-bad; I was terribly wrong. The best way to describe The New World is to compare it to watching a 2 hour 13 minute cologne commercial. It was like a bad art film, that you wanted to watch not for the entertainment but for the challenge. I feel that I should have gotten a t-shirt afterwards for my accomplishment.

To start my blog right, I have decided to lay down the basic political beliefs that I hold. While there are many aspects that I combine to form my political stance, I feel that it would be better for me to lay the grounding of my beliefs one blog at a time. You, as the reader, may agree with some, you may disagree with others, I don’t care, so long as you know where I am coming from when I formulate my stance for or against certain issues. In order to know why you are arguing something, you need to know what your basic values are. With that being said, one of the most basic beliefs a person can hold is their stance on self-accountability. It is the difference between communism and democracy. Either you believe that man can take care of himself or man is nothing more than a wild animal that must be controlled by the government. There are many similarities between this debate and the debate over man being good or evil. But the bottom line is, do you believe man is civilized, self-sufficient and responsibly for himself? Or do you believe that man is an animal that must be controlled by government in order to achieve civic stability? Furthermore, do you believe that man should not be responsible for himself?

If you believe that man should not be held accountable, than you have two options: one, the uncompassionate choice, man must live in the wild with other animals. Two, the compassionate choice, man must be controlled by the government. The weak must be supported by the government because they have no responsibility for themselves. If you break the law, you will not be punished but rather rehabilitated, because without accountability you have no conscience. You have no rights, because without accountability you are owned and must be taken care of by the government. Ironically, in order for the system to work, if you are the strong, you support the government, because there is no one else to do so, therefore the strong are penalized by being strong and able.

If you believe that man is accountable for himself, as John Locke did, then you believe that governments only purpose is to serve man. Man has rights over his life, liberty and property. If a man wishes to achieve greatness, it is within his reach. If a man breaks the law, he must be penalized. With self-accountability the weak stay weak and the strong prosper, however, the decision is up to the man.

I choose self-accountability, I believe that you make your own bed, you build your own house and you reap what you sow. You have no responsibility to others and no one has responsibility to you. Youre responsibility lies with you and yours (your family or someone who is a dependent of you). True, I believe that there are circumstances in which a person cannot take care of himself and should be helped, however the situation is rare. If you are able to work, than you are responsible for yourself. I also believe that we are not entitled to anything but freedom and natural rights, services are mearly benifits that are provided by a community based on their level of prosperity. Please do not misinterpret my view of entitlement as absolutes, it has a grey zone. While I may lie far to the self-accountability side I do believe there are exceptions. The government should provide basic services such as a military and public schooling. However, while I do believe in providing public schooling to the community, I also believe that you are not entitled to an education, you have to work for it.