Wrongful Musings

Today's the day we'll find out if America is tired of the Republicans screwing it up or afraid of the Democrats making it worse. What is "it?" This year, it includes Iraq, gay marriage, taxes, stem cell research, and border control. Here's my take. Iraq is so incredibly messed up that I'm not sure Democrats can dig us out, but we have to let them try because at this point it can't really get any worse. Gay marriage: who cares!? Homophobes and closet gays, that's who. Taxes.... what a tough issue. I say we should raise the capital gains tax and take some of the burden off of the middle class. What does the GOP call that? A tax hike. It is a raise, but only largely on wealthy Americans. Stem cell research is a ridiculous issue. I won't even address it here because the answer is so glaringly obvious to anyone with a brain. Those who don't have a brain need the research even more. Lastly, border control. Shut down the damn border by severely punishing the companies hiring the workers.

With my largely progressive views out of the way (all but the border control), I'm going to make a prediction. The GOP will retain control of the House and Senate, despite beliefs that at least the House will be controlled by Democrats. Why do I think this? Because the GOP is great at turning out their base. The people deciding the future of America today will be gay-hating, gun-toting and Bible-hugging. God Bless America.

Recently I have been thinking about the power of choices. Each day we make several choices that may or may not impact the rest of our lives. Some choices obviously have much greater importance than others. One such choice is college. What college to choose, what degree to pursue, and how much to study have profound implications. Other choices have seemingly less importance, but can have just as much impact as the larger, more obvious choices.

One choice I struggle with often is drinking. I enjoy drinking. I love having wine with dinner, whisky with poker, and beer with football. The choice to drink never seems like a problem when I choose to do so. The problem is that I also occasionally have trouble containing my drinking. Sometimes I don't stop when I should, and I do things I'd rather not do. This can consist of mouthing off to people or saying things I'd rather not say if I were making better choices. I might only do this one out of every thirty times I drink, but doing it at all is too often. I'm concerned that if I keep up my habit, one of these days I will do something that I can't explain away.

So now I'm faced with a choice. Do I quit something I enjoy doing to prevent the ramifications of poor decision making? Can I control my drinking by only having a few at a time? Does the fact that I'm concerned about it mean I should stop? If I'd rather not stop, does that mean I have a problem? Ahh, choices...