First, and most importantly, I'm a dad. Our little rainbow baby was born March 6th of this year, and it has been a hard journey to get there. Perhaps most of the story would be better served in its own post, but getting little Jackson here was a very long and difficult struggle. We struggled with getting pregnant for close to two years, finally got pregnant in late 2016, and then a few days after Christmas Sarah miscarried the baby. I spent almost all of the pregnancy with Jackson worried that Sarah would come home from work and tell me she was having another miscarriage.,which was made worse by the fact Sarah was high-risk. It didn't really start feeling real until Sarah went on maternity leave and started having weak contractions. After about a week and a half of weak contractions, Sarah was admitted and induced at 6 in the morning. After 15 hours of Jackson's heart rate jumping between extremes, He was born. The 6 months since has been so wonderful and frustrating and stressful and love-filled. Parenting is a very different beast from how I imagined it, and I absolutely love it.
So, what else is new? Well, since I last updated my blog, I've changed. quite a bit.
First, I've done nearly the opposite of what most college students do. Most kids go off to college and come back as nicely brainwashed socialists who can't wait to vote for Bernie. Not me. I left Florida as a left-of-center moderate with strong beliefs in gun control and centralized social programs. Nowadays, I'm a moderate who favors a more libertarian approach , although i do still hold some centralized ideas. If anything, my views on government revolve around the idea that John Locke was right: Humans have natural rights that should be protected, that society requires men give up their right to protect these rights to a small degree, and that government therefore should primarily see that peoples natural rights are protected. Where I differ from many in the libertarian movement is that I am okay and fully support government expanding to provide ancillary services, provided that these do not infringe on the people's natural rights. This of course is a rudimentary overview, and my opinions on government is much more nuanced and complicated. I believe that public policy should be based primarily on first, protecting people's right, and second, well-researched evidence and consensus of experts. I also believe that government should always seek to run as efficiently as possible. Highlighting a few issues, here are my opinions:
Gun Control: I would fully support the total repeal of the NFA and subsequent gun control measures. John Locke wrote that the right to self-defense was paramount to defending natural rights, both against others and against government. Nearly all gun-control laws do not actually reduce crime or gun violence, although a few do. But things like making suppressors a class III item, or outright bans on possession by felons, irrespective the nature of the crime, is just feel-good virtue signalling.
Education: This falls under the category of services, and I think this one should be supported. An educated public is an empowered public, just as much as an armed public. We should fund education as much as reasonable, but I do believe education should serve two purposes: To create factual awareness, and to foster intellectual strength. These things unfortunately do not always happen, in public and private education, which includes homeschooling. Too often, in both public and private.home education, those who have little knowledge of a subject but have strong, ignorant opinions have demanded "fair" or "balanced" teaching, such as in most topics in science.
Health care: The evidence is clear and indisputable: The american health care system sucks. We pay significantly more for significantly worse outcomes. The problem is I don't really know how to reduce costs and improve outcomes in a way that would actually work in country like ours.
Environmental issues: The earth is warming rapidly. This is again, an indisputable fact. Carbon gasses are significantly higher than they used to be. This is leading to mass acidification of our water. We are seeing dramatic changes in climate cycles. The question isn't if it's happening, but how much of it is due to us and what we can do about it. One word: Nuclear.
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Another thing that's happened is I've fallen in love with the west. When we moved out here, Sarah and I couldn't wait to get back to Florida. But over time, We've learned to love this place. It's very different from what we grew up with, but we've decided to stay in the Idaho/Wyoming/Montana area. This place is actually quite beautiful.
So here I am now. I graduated in April with a degree in biology, emphasis in neuroscience. I didn't get into my graduate program because I was misinformed about prerequisites by my entrance counselor. As of right now, I am just working night audit at a motel here in Rigby (we moved to Rigby since Sarah teaches at Jefferson Elementary). I'm still looking at my options, but it most likely will be either Law Enforcement or secondary education.
I'll probably be writing more as time goes on, since I spend most of my nights at work bored out of my skull.
