:: Captain's Personal Blog ::

Stardate: Tuesday, March 19, 2002

Morals, Scruples, and other Picture Postcards.....

Yesterday was a bit unsettling. I got into a moral discussion with my friend Cheryl, and I think it wound up bad. It was a discussion about fast food and the slaughter of animals and abuse of the workers that produce the food. She was shocked to discover that not only would I not change my eating habits (as that I eat a lot of fast food) but that I don't vote.

The fact that I have faith in humanity to take care of itself, and yet I do not have the desire to affect change myself, didn't really help my case either. To be honest, I don't have much of a case to help. As far as the suffering of the animals and the workers, I feel for them. I do. I'm not exactly sure how to put this into words. Problems like this are oozing with complexity. If the workers are treated so badly, they should find something else to do. Maybe they can't because they are too poorly off to take anything else. Maybe they don't realize they are being treated badly.

If it's a matter of hazardous working conditions, one could claim occupational hazards are a part of any job. Maybe these conditions are too hazardous for humans to be a part of.

History is all about harmful treatment of human beings. The ideas behind this cruelty, no matter how unpopular they are to abolish, are eventually done away with. Slavery comes to mind as an example. I know this is a totally different concept, and that if one wants to, they can make the case that I would be contributing to the slave trade, if that analogy held true. Does that make me feel uncomfortable? No, because I know that wouldn't be the case. I am uncomfortable enough ASKING people to do things for me, let alone expecting them.

Fast food did not start out the way it is today. It gradually became what it is. It can go back. It will take time. One book may not totally convince me that these conditions are as they say. Time will tell and will fix these things. Humanity will take care of itself.

On to that point. Long ago, I came to the conclusion that while I am human in the biological sense, I can not be in the emotional and personal sense. While people are unique by nature, they do have inherent things that bring them close together as individuals. Things that they share.

While I can occasionally share opinions with people, there is always something that we are radically and fundamentally opposed upon. I have yet to find someone enough like myself to make me feel that I am not truly alone in the world. I have my friends, who are good for me, and we agree on many things, but I can't help but live in constant fear (perhaps fear is too strong a word, but I am at a loss for now) that one day, someone is going to find out something about me and I'll never hear from them again. It's almost the fear of being found out or discovered. That people will one day figure out what a sham I am and that I really am THAT different.

It's an irrational fear, and that's all it is. It's unhealthy to remove yourself from humanity, but until I can get the proof that I need that there is someone else out there like me, I can't think of any other way to explain it. I mean, there's eccentricity, and there's ECCENTRICITY. I don't believe that I am from another planet necessarily, (although I haven't ruled it out,) but I don't fit in with society at large. This is why I can't vote. For me, it CAN'T be about voting for the lesser of two evils. You have to vote for someone that you believe in. If you vote for someone who you don't believe in, just because you don't think he's as bad as the other guy that you don't believe in, how is that helping? How is that going to make the world a better place. How is that standing by your convictions? Yes, if people don't vote that could eventually destroy the democratic process. But the democratic process is about the public voice. People who refuse to make choices deserve to have that choice taken from them. Those who want to make a difference should be allowed to. That's part of democracy. Popular votes.

This is really too much to try to put together right now. I may try to articulate it more later. It doesn't lessen the pain of my perceived letting Cheryl down. That falls under the "just when you thought someone couldn't think less of you" category. I don't know if I can ever recover from that. Just because I like fast food and because I can't vote for people I don't believe in.
:: J 11:27 AM [+] ::
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